315 



MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, Brethren of the Order, and Gentlemen : — 

I appear before this vast concoui-se of my fellow-countrymen, to-day, in 
obedience to an invitation, extended to me by the Order of United Americans, 
of which organization I am proud to be regarded as a worthy member, to de- 
liver an address, on this the 127th anniversary of the day that gave to the 
world, for the benefit of mankind, our common father, the immortal and 
heavenly gifted Washington. 

It is due to the Order that I should correct a silly report, which has found 
its way into the press, that the object of this occasion was to put me fairly on 
the course for the next Presidency. That their objects were wise and patriot- 
ic, I have never doubted, but that they reached to this exalted and sublime 
height, they have certainly given me no reason to believe. 

It is due to myself to say, that when I was honored with the invitation, I 
accepted it only on condition : — I said to the Committee, I am no Fourth of 
July speech-maker, for I have neither the genius nor the imagination that 
would fit me for such a style of oratory ; but ours is a political organization, 
designed to accomplisli patriotic, political results, for the common benefit of 
all who are interested in the perpetuity of our institutions, and I can conceive 
no more appropriate occasion for an inquiry into the political condition of the 
country than on the birthday of Washington ; if, therefore, it shall be 
agreeable to the Committee, and to the Order of which you are the representa- 
tives, that I should undertake to show the deplorable condition to which it 
has been reduced, the causes that have led to it, and the remedies to be ap- 
plied, in whicli I shall necessarily deal, with an unsparing, but a just hand, 
with the democratic party, to which all the evils and calamities that have be- 
fallen us are to be traced, then I will venture an attempt, and endeavor to 
present such views as are calculated to arrest the public attention, with a 
confiding trust they may prove beneficial to our common country. 

These conditions were accepted, and I am here to discharge the task I have 
undertaken. 

Any attempt at an appropriate or suitable eulogy on the virtues and ser- 
vices of Washington — of whom it was as beautifully as it was graphically and 
justly said, "He was the first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 
his countrymen" — would be as far above the reach of my limited capacity 
as his imperishable name and fame are above the necessity for eulogy — and 
beyond the reach of envy, jealousy, calumny or detraction. 
1 



Washington stands out from all the rest of mankind, alone, without a rival, 
and without a peer. Between himself and others, comparisons are not insti- 
tuted, because all acknowledge his superiority, and the best would suffer by 
the contrast ; for not only in every clime where civilization has extended its 
blessings, but even among the savage and barbarous tribes, the name of 
Washington is known and revered as among the sagacious, the most wise; as 
among the unsullied, the most pure ; and among the good, the best. 

It is not, then, in a vain and idle desire for an ostentatious and pedantic 
display of oratory, or of learning (to which I set up no pretensions) that I 
am here to-day. It is not to reap in a field, where nothing is left to gleam 
that I come to harvest ; it is not of Washington that I come to speak, but of 
those great works of which he was the chief and mighty architect ; the liber- 
ties of the people and the union of the States, for which he fought in the bat- 
tle-field and labored in the Council Chamber, and which, having at length 
perfected and set in order, he transmitted to us, his unworthy children, as the 
richest inheritance ever bequeathed to humanity, in sacred trust, to be handed 
down by us unimpaired to our children and their descendants for generation 
upon generation yet unnumbered and unborn. 

That there have been, and still are, those who occupy high positions in 
society, eminent places in the Government, and who enjoy a large share of 
the respect and confidence of those by whom they are surrounded at home, 
who neither appreciate the virtues and services of their ancestry, nor the 
advantages and blessings of the Union, we are furnished with abundant 
evidence, not only through the public press but in our daily intercourse with 
the world, and in our common walks of life ; and althougli we see it not un- 
frequently happen that such men, by inflammatory appeals to the sordid pas- 
sions or sectional prejudices of a more honest and confiding constituency, 
manage to worm themselves into official stations, sometimes even as the 
representatives of States, yet I do not believe that there is a single State in 
this Union that has become so basely degenerate, so unspeakably depraved, 
as to calculate its value by dollars and cents, whether for the cotton of South 
Carolina, the negroes of Virginia, the mules of Kentucky, the hogs of Ohio> 
the lands of the West, or the manufactures of the North. 

The representatives of the people are not always to be taken as a just index 
of the sentiment of those they represent. My own State has furnished more 
than one nuUifier, secessionist and disunionist to the public councils ; but I 
take both pleasure and pride in paying a just tribute to the integrity and 
patriotism of the constituent bodies they left behind them when they went to 
Washington, by declaring they are as true and as sound and loyal on the 
questions of the Union, as were their forefathers in the days of the Revolu- 
tion ; then if you ask me why they select such men to represent them, I 
answer, Ist, because they cannot be made to believe the Union is in danger; 
and 2d, because it is tlie result of party spirit and party organization. 

Yet it is unquestionable, that there has been a change in public sentiment, 



in some sections of tlais country, witliin tlie last twenty years ; men are now 
found wlio habitually indulge in a freedom of speech through the public 
press, upon the hustings, and in the social circle, which, if whispered around 
the domestic hearth, but little over a quarter of a century ago, would have 
subjected the perpetrator of the treasonable outrage, to the unceremonious 
application of a coat of tar and feathers, and a ride upon a rail, that would 
have cured the worst case of chronic dyspepsia ; but now, the sound of dis- 
union, the ravings of sectional madmen, the clamors of disappointed aspirants 
and demagogues, who will submit to no construction of the Constitution that 
is not of their own interpretation, and to no administration that is not of tlieir 
own selection, have become so familiar to our ears, that instead of their being 
visited with the unqualified condemnation, the indignant wrath, the scoffs and 
hisses of an offended populace, we see the prime movers, the chief offenders, 
boldly stepping forth for places of the higliest public trust, — and wise, and 
virtuous, and patriotic men, who should stand aghast at the sublimity of 
their audacity, under the inexorable rule of party discipline, help them into 
office, whilst they abominate their detestable doctrines, upon those most im- 
portant points — but whilst "charity covereth a multitude of sins," Democ- 
racy covereth charity, and obliterates all sin. 

How many of those, who, but a short time since, were threatening to tear 
this Union asunder, and involve ns in all the horrors of civil strife, if a ma- 
joi'ity of the people of this 'country, in the exercise of their constitutional and 
sovereign right, should elect a candidate to the chief magistracy of the nation, 
not of their own section of the country, and not of their own party (for 
there lay the true secret), are now to be found, graciously tendering their 
own services for this same great trust, and with a degree of effrontery which 
defies description, claiming to belong to the only national party, and the only 
party, that can save the Union, or preserve tlie Constitution ! 

Let the people beware how they intrust this sacred legacy to the hands of 
those who have ever harbored a design to destroy it, or calculated its cost 
by sectional or pecuniary advantages. 

It would not only be a flagrant breach of trust, reposed in us by those who 
executed the deed, — but it would be a crime against God and man, that would 
ascend to heaven, and excite the wrath of an offended Deity. Let them trust 
it only to those who value it for itself alone, and for the inestimable and 
countless blessings it has bestowed. 

And here it might be well to stop, and inquire for a moment, who they are, 
and where they are to be found ? I am happy to say that there is but one 
party in this country, divided and subdivided as we are, in which that class 
of men are recognized or found, and that is the party, which claims '■'■par 
erceZZence" to bo the national party — the only party '■'■that can save the Unioii." 
" The state rights republican democratic party" — God save the mark ! No 
man that belongs to the "Whig party — no man that belongs to the American 
party — no man that belongs to the Republican party, so far as I know — no 



4 :mk. botts' address. 

• 

man that belongs to the great opposition party — is an advocate for disunion ! 
for the raoint-nt he becomes contaminated or tainted with this foul, and 
odious, and detestable heresy, he falls out of the ranks of the opposition 
party, and walks straight into the ranks of the Imposition parti/, where he 
can find sympathy and aid, and comfort, from his brother democrats ; and 
this of itself is enough to brand that party with suspicion and distrust, and 
to arouse the energies of every patriotic heart, to frown down upon them, as 
an unsafe and dangerous political organization; — it is the only party that will 
recognize and fraternize with disunionists, and the number of these, what- 
ever it may be, is to be found in their ranks, and theirs only ; — let the good 
men, let the patriotic men, who love their country and its institutions, come 
out of it — and leave it to die the death it deserves ; and if they will not, if 
they still persist, if houcst, well meaning, and patriotic men (as the great mass 
of them are) still adhere to the enemies of their country — let them also, 
through our united and untiring efforts, share the fate they will have brought 
upon themselves, and which they will so richly deserve. 

Let it not be supposed that I entertain any apprehensions for the fate of the 
Union: not at all ! This Union has the elements of strength within itself, 
to enaljle it to meet and crush all rebellion from within, and all as5:auUs from 
without. 

All that is needed is a bold, fearless, determined man, at the head of the 
Government, who will discharge his duty faithfully, without fear, favor, or 
affection, when the necessity shall arise, and trust to the laws, and the good 
sense and patriotism of the country for his support. But there can be no 
security for its safety whilst the Government is in the hands of those who prefer 
power to union ; or who will be subjected to the influence or control of that 
faction, whose support will be essential to the continuance of their power. 

The influence of a portion of these disorganizers upon the present adminis- 
tration, has been made too painfully manifest, within the last fifteen months, 
to require a more specific reference. 

If there was one turbulent spirit in Paradise, who preferred " to reign in 
Hell rather than serve in Heaven," it is perhaps not to be wondered at, that 
of Lucifer's kind some should be found amongst us, who prefer to be at the 
head of a rebellious and treasonable movemenl. rather than live in obscurity, 
and die "unknown, unhonored and unsung;" but, as Lucifer was hurled 
headlong from on high for his audacious and rebellious spirit, so should 
these agitators and disturbers of the public peace — these advocates of disunion, 
be hurled from the high places they desecrate, and their names be handed 
down with obloquy and dishonor, on the page of history, as an example and a 
warning to future generations. 

I would as soon confide the helpless lamb to the tender mercies of a raven- 
ous wolf, as to commit this Union to the safe keeping of one who had ever 
dared to raise his voice, or harbor a thought, for its destruction. I would 
not tolerate a party that gives countenance, and .sympathy, and the right hand 



ME. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 5 

of fellowship and cordiality to those who do, or have meditated treason to our 
glorious and thrice blessed Union; achieved by the wisdom of patriots, 
cemented by the best blood of our ancestry, and consecrated in the affections 
of all good and worthy men. 

Having said this much on the subject of the Union, and those who would 
disturb its harmony, — for I will not stop to speak of its advantages and 
blessings, apparent to all, except a besotted and crack-brained portion of 
Democracy — let us take a glance at the demoralized and ruinous condition in 
which we find the country, at home and abroad, under the control of those 
who have held the reins of Government for thirty years, the causes that have 
led to it, and the remedies to be applied. And first, let us see how we stand, 
at this day, in our relations with the civilized world at large. 

By reference to the annual message of the President, it will be seen, that 
we have troublesome questions — complications they are called — to be settled, 
with no less than nine different powers — any one of which may, at any time, 
nvolve us in a general war with the whole ; and out of some of which war 
will be manufactured, if it should be deemed necessary, in the next Presi- 
dential campaign, to make such an issue in order to retain that party in 
power. 

But I hope before they bring this calamity upon the country, they will be 
admonished that the party, that will involve us in unnecessary strife, is not 
the party that will be the most likely to bring us out of it with advantage and 
honor to the nation. 

It appears, from the message of the President, that we are involved in 
trouble with England — and, of course, with France, as the ally of England — 
Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rico, New Grenada, Guatamala, and 
Paraguay. 

A nice little batch of quarrels, truly, for this great nation to work itself 
into. If a man is found quarreling with everybody he meets, the world is 
very apt to pass sentence of condemnation against him, on the presumption 
that one who involves himself in trouble with all, is not likely to be himself 
wholly blameless; this is a natural judgment to be pronounced, both against 
an individual and a nation ; and what is it that has involved us in so many 
difficulties ? It is either the want of proper energy or disposition on the 
part of our Government, to discharge its duty faithfully to the country, and to 
mankind ; it is either a culpable timidity in the execution of the laws, or it is 
a still more criminal desire to acquire strength and popularity, with a peculiar 
class of citizens, by ignoring all laws and winking at its flagrant violation in 
open day. It is the countenance that has been given to the lawless spirit of 
filibusterism, as it is politely termed, which is nothing more and nothing less, 
than a war of desperate lawless men against the property and the rights of 
the rest of mankind, in whatever region or climate the prospect of private 
fortunes and success may invite them. 

How is it that one man has been permitted to set the whole Government at 



b MR. EOTTS ADDRESS. 

dofiance? — to raise his troops — charter his vessels — ship his men and muni- 
tions of war, and sail from the ports of New York, New Orleans, and Mobile, 
in defiance of the law and all its officers, with the proclamation of the Exe, 
cutive to stop it ? and when he is arrested by a naval officer, in strict obe- 
dience to the spirit of his orders, (for it was no more a violation of the laws 
of neutrality to arrest him on the territory of Nicaragua than on the waters 
within the jurisdiction of Nicaragua, and to which the letter of his orders ex- 
tended), and when he is brought home an offender against the.laws of his coun- 
try, he is discharged, not only without punishment, but without reproach, and 
is turned loose only to repeat his former offenses. 

Look at the case of Walker : he charters a vessel in New Orleans, sends 
300 men with arms and munitions of war on board, evidently, and almost 
acknowledgedly, on a filibustering expedition against a defenseless people 
with whom we were on terms of peace ; he is then arrested and carried be- 
fore a federal judge, who released him on $2,000 bail, which was promptly 
paid by those who were acting in concert with him, and sympathizing in all 
his movements, he repairs on board and sets sail from New Orleans for Nicara- 
gua ; the facts are communicated to the head of the Government, orders are 
issued and sent out to the American squadron not to permit him to land — he 
is arrested immediately on landing — he is sent home an offender against the 
law of his country — he is delivered to the authorities at Washingron by the 
mai-shal of this district, and the President, upon whose proclamation he has 
been arrested, and who, in his message to Congress, in 1857, rebuked Judge 
Caleb for the insufficiency of bail required, coolly informs the marshal, 
through the Secretary of State, that he has no use for Mr. Walker, and seems 
to treat it as a very officious and impertinent thing in Marshal Rynders to 
trouble them with General Walker's affairs, who is further discharged with no 
bail at all, and turned loose to get up another expedition, that set sail from 
Mobile in open day on another piratical cruise, which, by the interposition of 
Divine Providence, was arrested, and the honor, in some degree, and perhaps 
the peace of the country saved, alone by the accidents of the sea which befell 
these marauding men. 

Is it within the compass of human credulity, that such scenes as I have de- 
scribed could have happened, if there had been a real and honest desire, as 
by paper proclamation would have appeared, to have executed faithfully the 
laws that the President was sworn to support ? 

If we can persuade ourselves that all is fair and honest, can we hope to 
make the other powers of the world believe it ? Does any man believe, that 
with the means at the disposal of the Government, the African slave trade can 
be successfully carried on, and two cargoes of Africans landed on our Southern 
coast, if there was an honest desire to prevent it ? 

The law is strong enough, why is it not enforced ? 

Aye, there is the question. Who are these filibusters and African slave 
dealers? To what party do they all belong ? I am happy to say I have never 



MR. BOTTS ADDRESS. 7 

heard of a member of the Whig or American parties, to both of which I be- 
long, who has given any countenance to these lawless proceedhigs ; they be- 
long to the Southern Democracy, whose support, with that of their friends, is 
essential to the perpetuation of democratic ascendency. The moment one of 
any other party becomes a filibuster, or an African slave trader, he seeks the 
company that suits him, and straightway joins the Democracy or Imposition 
parly, where alone he can meet with sympathy. 

How does our democratic President propose to treat these questions of for- 
eign difficulty? Look to his message and to his organ, "the Union," and 
shudder while you read. He makes the astounding proposition, which, twenty- 
five years ago, would have startled this nation from its centre to its circum- 
ference, that all the guards and barriers of the Constitution shall be unhinged, 
that all defenses shall be broken down, and that Congress shall divest itself of 
the war-making power, and transfer to him, the President, not only the power 
of making war, but that he shall have control of the army and navy of the 
United States to protect the three transit routes of Nicaragua, Panama, and 
Tehuantepec, and to authorize him to establish a protectorate in the States of 
Chihuahua and Sonora, within the territory of Mexico ; such protection as the 
Emperor Nicholas proposed to extend to the provinces of Wallachia and Mol- 
davia, and which led to the late war between that power and the combined 
forces of England and France. Our President has ascertained that there is a 
" sick man" on this continent, for whom he proposes to become a dry nurse • 
and the pretext for this is, that there is no power in the Mexican govern 
ment to restrain its lawless citizens from depredating on the rights oi others. 
What has this government to do with Protectorates and nursing of sick men 
Let us be careful how we set bad examples. I have just shown that there was 
either no power or no disposition in this government to prevent our own law- 
less citizens from depredating on the rights of others ; — and why may not 
other powers, with equal propriety, undertake a Protectorate for our Southern 
border, until the government of the United States furnishes some evidence of 
its ability to restrain the lawless mobs of fillibusters from bidding defiance to 
all lawful authority at home ? 

And, to enable the President thus to carry out his designs, which amount 
in themselves to actual war, and will be so regarded, not only by Mexico, but 
by all the world, it is proposed by the Union newspaper, the home organ of 
the President, published under his eye, and subject to his control, that an 
appropriation of $20,000,000 shall be made by Congress, and placed at the 
disposal of the President. If there be occasion for war with Mexico, or any 
other power, let war be declared in the only legitimate mode, by the war- 
making power of the United States ; for when we have ouce gotten into it — 
whether by the indiscretion of the President, or by design, in order to divert 
public attention from the misdeeds of democracy, or far the purpose of intro- 
ducing a new issue into the next Presidential campaign— we shall have nothing 
left us to do but to fight it out. 



8 :mk. botts' address. 

War is at all times a sad calamity to befall any people, but, in the name of 
humanity, if we are to have it, let us have just grounds for it — so that we can 
stand justified before Heaven, and in the face of the world; and, at all events, 
let us not break down all our constitutional palisades and restrictions in order 
to seek it. 

Nor is this the only infringement of the Constitution proposed by our 
democratic President. 

He seeks to acquire Cuba — by fair means if he can, by foul means if he 
must — for he first says, "We would not, if we could, acquire Cuba in any 
other manner than by honorable negotiation." This, he says, is due to our 
national character, and yet he does not finish the paragraph before he 
reasserts the doctrines of the Ostend Manifesto, and thinks a case may arise 
which would render a departure from honorable negotiation clearly justifiable, 
under the imperative and overruling law of self-preservation, when, as a 
matter of course, we would steal it — and, from the next succeeding paragraph, 
we might naturally conclude, that the case that would justify stealing had 
about this time arrived. 

But I have spoken of another proposition to break down the Constitution, 
and transfer the treaty-making power from the Senate of the United States to 
the President, for he modestly asks at the hands of Congress an appropriation 
to enable him to make an advance to the Spanish government (or it may be 
to the Spanish ministry) immediately after the signing of the treaty, without 
awaiting its ratification by the Senate, and his political and confidential friend 
in the Senate has proposed that the sum of §30,000,000 shall be placed al 
his disposal for this purpose, and his party followers in both Houses have 
reported bills to this eifect. 

Then the President is to be authorized to negotiate a treaty, at a cost of 
$30,000,000, after which, the Senate may exercise the high prerogative of 
ratifying the treaty or of throwing $30,000,000 of the people's money to 
the dogs. 

Now, then, here is the proposition, first to place the army and navy of the 
United States at the disposal of the President, with authority to make war, 
then transfer to him the treaty-making power ; and, last of all, to put the 
purse-strings of the nation in his hands, by the appropriation of the enormous 
sum of $50,000,000, to accomphsh all the ends he has in view ; and now, I 
ask the people of this country, what will be left of their Constitution worth 
preserving. 

Yet, this is Democracy ! This is the only national party ! This is the only 
party that can be safely trusted, to save the Union and preserve the Consti- 
tution ! This is the National, Constitutional, States' rights party, which has 
appropriated to itself, exclusively, all the offices, honors and emoluments 
of office for the last thirty years, with rare intervals of exception, and exer- 
cised the moat intolerant proscription against the purest, wisest, and most ex- 
perienced men of the opposite party, that have at any time adorned the 
oountry^ 



MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 9 

It is time that such a party was crushed out, and its organization dispersed; 
for, as I hope to be able to prove, it has operated as a bhght and mildew on 
the prosperity, happiness and peace of the country, wherever its horrid 
deformities have been seen and felt, whether in the National or State gov- 
ernments. 

Half a century cannot put my own State in the condition she ought now to 
occupy, and would have occupied, but for its pernicious councils and its inju- 
rious influences. 

It is not in opposition to the acquisition of Cuba that I speak, but to the 
manner in which it is proposed to be acquired; the man has not been born 
with whom I would entrust the power asked to be lodged in the hands of Mr. 
Buchanan ; the case cannot arise, for the accomplishment of which I would 
do such violence to the Constitution. If the Father of his country were alive 
I would not confer such powers upon him. Not from an apprehension that 
his integrity would be too weak to resist the temptation, nor that his ambition 
would be so strong as to lead him into an abuse of the power, but that I 
would not set such an example, or establish such a precedent, for all the 
Island of Cuba could ever be worth to us. Fifty milHons of dollars, and the 
army and navy, all subject to the control of the President, with the express 
grant of power to make war and purchase territory during the recess of Con- 
gress at his own discretion ! What President have we had, before this, who 
could have presented so startling and so monstrous a proposition, without 
exciting the alarm and indignation of every man in the country ? Could 
Santr \.nna have claimed more as Dictator in Mexico ? Are there additional 
powa , ^or Louis Napoleon to exercise in France, than to have the control of 
the army, the navy and the treasury of France ? 

If Cuba can be obtained in any fair, honorable and constitutional mode, 
as an important point of defense for a portion of our Southern border, and 
the Gulf of Mexico, the American Mediterranean, and as a means of obliter- 
ating the inhuman traffic in African slavery, which, I think, constitutes its 
chief importance to us, I would not be the one to interpose an objection — 
but if it is only for the purpose of raising some new issue for helping a Demo- 
cratic nominee into the Presidency, as the slavery question has become 
threadbare and worn out — and Southern Whiggery can no longer be hum- 
bugged by it — if it is for the purpose, either now or hereafter, of creating 
new cause for sectional strife, then I would much prefer to have nothing to 
do with it. But can it be purchased at all? I think not; certainly for the 
present ! What, then, is the appropriation of $30,000,000 for ? — first, 
to provoke some cause for making a descent upon it, and seizing it under the 
Ostend doctrine — and then, so time it as to make that a great issue in the 
Presidential election, in 1860. 

It would be better, at all events, to have it understood in advance what 
ultimate disposition is to be made of it, before it is acquired in any form ; 
and for that reason I should prefer its postponement until it could be 



10 3IE. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

obtuned by those in whose patriotisra and political integrity I hare more 
confidence than I have in the leading men of the Democratic party, and who 
win procore it, if at all, withoat the destruction of the Constitution. 

So mach for our foreign policy and our complications with other powers 
Let us now see how we stand in cor home relations, under this iron sway of 
Democracy. When we turn our eyes in that direction, we find the nation 

" rent with heresies. 
And bristling with rebellion." 

Soothem leagues. Mormon wars, Kansas troubles, sectional strife, Congress- 
ional corruption, purchased legislation, insufferable extravagance, public plun- 
der, confidence destroyed, trade paralyzed, manufactures closed, vessels 
rotting at your wharves, labor idle, industry discoviraged, the people impov- 
erished, your tTizasTiry bankrtipt, lawless mobs and vigilance committees 
usurping the judgment seat, overawing the officers of the law, and bidding 
defiance to all legal authority, and this is what the Democracy boastfully call 
"a ttaie of uHparalUIed prosperity." 

This is a sad and sorrowful, but true, picture of our real condition ; would 
that it were cot so, and would that my mind could be relieved of the mourn- 
ful reaUty that it is so. 

This is not idle assertion ; it is historic truth, known to every well-in- 
formed man in the country, and which must appear at some future day on 
the page of history, if that history shall ever be truly written. 

Let us investigate the truth of each, in its regular order : 

That there is a body of men in the South a&sociated together as a " South- 
ern League," whose object is openly avowed to be to bring about a dissolu- 
tion of the Union, which, in legal definition, is a conspiracy to levy war 
against the United States, and of which no notice has been taken by those 
who are intrusted with the sacred charge of preserving the integrity of the 
Union ; and that that body of men is composed entirely of democrats, whose 
votes ai the polls are necessary to the continuance of democratic power in this 
govemment, are facts that none, I presume, will be bold enough to deny. 

That there was a Mormon war, in which the then Governor of the territory 
of Utah openly defied the legal authorities, and forcibly resisted the entrance 
of the military foreea of the United States, cutting off and destroying large 
quantities of provisions and wagon trains, which war has been discreditably 
compromised, when the traitor's head should have paid the forfeit of his rebel- 
lion, none can successfully dispute ; and we may well anticipate a renewal of 
hostilities and treason, at an early day, after the entire removal of the troopa. 

That the country has suffered from the Kansas troubles, and from sectional 
strife, which threatened to destroy this great temple of liberty, and that it 
was all brought about by the aggressive and encroaching spirit of Democracy, 
by the disturbance of a long-settled and satisfactory compromise, for their 
political aggrandizement only, few at this day will venture to gainsay. 

That there has been Congressional corruption, purchased legislation, insof- 



ME. BOTTS' ADDBE5S. 11 

ferable eitraTagance, and public plander, to aa extent onknoim and unpar- 
alleled before, under Democratic example and nusmle, the nomerous commit- 
tees that have been appointed lo inTestigate Congressional abuses and cormp- 
tions, the records of Congress will prove. And I have latelj seen it published 
that, on the failure of some Western or^S'orth Western railroad company, the 
President stated that one of the chief eauses of its failure was that the enor- 
mous sum of $7«X',CkXi had been paid to procure the passage of the bill through 
Congress, which has passed bj as an every-daj occnrrence, hardly worthy of 
notice. 

That confidence has been destroyed, trade paralyzed, manTifaciories closed 
and sold out tirder the sheriff's hammer, that vessels are rotting at yota' 
wharves for want of employment, that labor is unemployed and industry dis- 
couraged, that the people are impoverished, and the treasury bankrupt, that 
the Government is supported by loans, and the issue of treasury notes, and 
all this in a time of profound peace, and all, too, under a long reign of Demo- 
cratic legislation and control, the knowledge of all iatelligeni and candid men 
will testify. 

That lawless mobs and vigilance committees have aesuiued the judgement 
seat, and evaded or overawed the legal authorities of the coimtry, the scenes 
that have transpired in this city, in Baltimore, Mobile, Xew Orleans, and Cali- 
fornia, all bear evidence. 

Now all this has not happened within the last few years, without some con- 
trolling cause. It is not a mauer of mere chance and accident. There is a 
reason for it, and that reason ought to be investigated, and a corrective 
applied- 

What, then, is the cause ? It has been occaaoned, first, by the disorganize 
non of society, arising from a too rapid introduction of the foreign element 
into our social and political organizations, before ihey found a place suited to 
their wants, before they found the means of living, or had acquired a know- 
ledge of our institutions, or cared for their successful operation. Secondly, 
for the want of employment to the generd labor of the country, which has 
been perdstentiy refused by the Democracy, and which has led to dissipation, 
rowdyism, vice, and all the other concomitants of idleness ; and, thirdly, by 
the example set in high places of an unfaithful administration and execution 
of the law : and, lastly, by the improvident and tmwise system of legislation 
as established by the Democratic party ; — ^in refusing to pro wet the fruits of 
the industrr of the country, whilst the vicious and corrupt are courted and 
caressed, shielded and protected wherever they Lave the power to control a 
popular election. 

To correct all this it wQl not do to lop aS a bran^ here and a bran<^ there- 
you must begin at the root ; you must institute a new order of things in 
Washington ; you must purify the Government and all its officers ; and then 
the people will become pure, or will be deterred hum committing such scenes 
of violence and disorder as I have described. 



12 ME. BOTTS' ADDEESS, 

I do not mean to saj, because I do not believe, that vice and corruption 
pervade the entire body of Democratic politicians, although there is far too 
much of it in politicians of all parties, and none are too good to bear watch; 
ing ; but it is the nature and character of their organization, which is the most 
perfect, compact, and formidable that ever controlled a party, that leads to 
all these mischiefs — it is the system and policy they pursue, and to which few 
of them do not subscribe ; and when they do not, they are excluded from the 
flesh-pots — which is the severest punishment known to their code; — that 
policy is to make all things bend to success ; to sacrifice all things human and 
holy to the ascendancy of party, and the perpetuation of power ; neither the 
lights of experience, the peace of the country, the harmony of sections, the 
preservation of the Constitution, the safety of the Union, the prosperity of 
tlie nation, the purity of the bench, the sanctity of the church, tieither one 
nor all these combined, are allowed to break through the serried ranks of 
their political organization, which has no principle for its basis, and no manly 
incentive for its conduct. 

At the behest, and by the example of Democracy — party politics have 
entered into our courts, of high and low degree, its influence is to be felt in 
the jury-box, and to be seen in the witness-stand; it is as much a part of the 
pohcy of that party, to make Democracy a portion of the education of the 
youth of the country, by the appointment of Democratic teachers and pro- 
fessors, as it is a part of the policy of the Roman Catholic church to make all 
Catholics, by the exclusion of the bible from our common schools. 

Xcver, never was a more thorough knowledge of a party displayed than 
when one of its chiefs, who assisted at its birth, said, " It was a party held 
together only by the cohesive power of the public plunder." Suppose Mr. 
Clay, whose relations to the Whig party were more constant, but not more 
close, had said tliis of us, as a warning to his countrymen ; who can measure 
or calculate the effect it would have produced ou the honest and well mean- 
ing patriots of our own party ? yet in what respect has it disturbed the De- 
mocracy, except to make them the more grasping, the more rapacious and the 
more active, in carrying out this one, and only principle ? 

Still I say, I do not attribute vice to all the leaders of that party, many of 
whom are sound hearted, and, on general subjects, sound headed men ; for 
there are among them, men who, in all the private and social relations of life, 
are as honorable and estimable men as live — but I would not trust them as 
politicians, in connection with the organization to which they belong, and to 
which an implicit obedience is demanded. 

IIow many of them, who, to my knowledge, voted against their judgments 
and their consciences, for the repeal of the Mi.'jsouri Compromise, which has 
brought so much mischief on the country — purely and simply, because it was 
required of them as a party measure. Men, like the lamented Rusk of Texasi 
with as honest and gallant a spirit as the Senate could boast, who told me on 
the day of the night on which that vote was taken, that in all his life he had 



ME. BOTTS^ ADDEESS. 13 

never done anything so much against his own judgment as he was about to do, 
in voting to repeal that compromise. 

Let Gen. Cass, who is an honest man and a patriot, with nothing more to 
expect at the hands of his party, be asked at this day, if he did not then 
think "the man who would defeat the passage of that bill, would be entitled 
to rank as the greatest benefactor of the age." 

Look, again, at Mr. Hammond, who is personally unknown to me, but who 
has publicly confessed, that he voted against his own convictions of duty for 
he Lecompton Constitution, which thought, as I tliink, " ought to have been 
kicked out of the Senate." 

I select these gentlemen as the most honorable, the most distinguished, 
and among the most favored of their party, holding seats in that 
body, which, from childhood, we have been taught to look up to as the great 
conservative branch of the government; removed by the period for which 
they are elected from those influences that would naturally operate elsewhere ; 
and when we see such men as these in such positions as they occupied, thus 
tied down by party di-cipline, I ask what have we to expect from inferior men 
in inferior places, many of whom have no other wish and no other hope than 
to live on popular favor at home, and on the public crib abroad ? 

What other than the Democratic party, bloated with arrogance, and glutted 
■with confidence in their own strength, would have dared to disturb that 
healing measure of compromise which had given peace to a distracted country 
for thirty-four years, only for the purpose of makin;^ a new issue by which 
they might, as they thought, more certainly retain their ill-gotten power. 

What mighty ills have not grown out of that disturbance ? 
The legislation of our wisest and best men, of our most experienced states 
men, a long unbroken current of judicial decisions for sixty-four years, as 
expounded by Marshall,and Story, and Baldwin, and'Washington, all swept by 
the board at one fell swoop, and the ship of state turned loose upon the waves 
of faction — tossed, and strained, and worn, drifting no one knows where, and 
encountering no one knows what: striking upon the rock of popular sover 
eignty here, the shoal of squatter sovereignty there, upon which she is thrown, 
first upon her beam ends and then upon her bows, struggling and straining 
for relief— and with no pilor, at hand, and no helm, nor compass, nor sail, nor 
mast, nor spar to run or guide her into port. Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
she will neither strand, nor founder, nor wreck, but, in defiance of the mis- 
management of all on board, she will ride triumphantly upon the waters — 
find her way into port — be brought into dock, overhauled and repaired, and 
again launched with officers and crew that will put her on her old track and 
weather every storm ; but no thanks for this to her present officers and crew, 
but to her own stout frame and superior sailing qualities. 

But what shall be done with those who have perpetrated this grave offense ? 
Shall they go unwhipped of justice ; or shall they pay the penalty of their 
guilt ? 



14 5IR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

How stands the question now of the power of legislation for the territories? 
Does it remain where the Constitution placed it, where it had been exercised 
for sixty-four years, and where the judicial tribunal* of the country had de- 
cided it to exist — in the Congress of the United States ? or does it abide in the 
territories themselves ? 

We have some new theory broached on this subject almost every day, be- 
cause from the moment they departed from the old landmark, they have been 
baulking, and blundering, and stumbling from bad to worse, like a blind horse 
in ploughed ground, simply for the reason, that there was no path to follow, 
and no road to travel, and no sign-post to guide ; and you must get back to 
the Constitution, and the power must remain where it was lodged by the Con- 
stitution — in the Congress of the United States — before matters will get 
straight again. 

This power Congress has no authority to transfer ; they have no choice but 
to exercise it themselves. If the power is given to Congress to legislate for 
the territories, they have no more right to divest themselves of that power 
and transfer it to the Territorial Legislatures, than they would have to divest 
themselves of the war-making power, and transfer it to the State Legislatures. 
And if the power is not vested in Congress, where do they derive the power 
by /c^ris/a^zon to transfer the authority to the territory? This proposition is 
too plain and simple to embarrass the mind of any statesman. Away, then, 
with all new-fangled theories and experiments of popular and squatter sove- 
reignty unknown to the Constitution. It is sheer nonsense and folly ; there 
can be no harmony of action, no peace, no agreement as to the power, until 
*his wild heresy is abandoned and the Constitution is restored to its original 
action, and to its ti-ue interpretation. If, then, I am asked, as I often am, 
what about Senator Douglass' new theory of squatter sovereignty, I answer, 
according to the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he is all right ; but, 
according to the Constitution, he is all wrong, essentially and radically wrong: 
extra-judicial political opinions that have been made to binge upon the Ne- 
braska bill, and not upon the Constitution, to the contrary notwithstanding. 

This is a position that no argument can refute and no sophistry evade. It 
is constitutional law, settled and carried out in practice by better and wiser 
men than those of the present day, and judicialhj decided and expounded by 
a pure, upright, and independent judiciary, who had no political objects to 
accomplish, and no party to sorve or obey. 

To the masses of Democracy I cannot and do not impute any other motives 
than such as control us in the Opposition. I believe they are as honest in pur- 
pose, and patriotic in design, as the masses of the Opposition ; but in the 
Southern States, where alone Democracy remains triumphant, they arc misled 
by demagogues and shallow leaders, who have wormed themselves into their 
confidence. They are kept, too, in a state of profound ignorance and dark- 
ness, by the fact that nearly the entire South is represented by the Democracy 
— who keep the country flooded with nothing but Democratic documents, 



MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 15 

which never expose Democratic misdeeds. From my own State, we have fif- 
teen Democratic repreaentatives in the two houses of Congress, not one of 
whom, I presume, ever sent an Opposition speech or document into the 
State ; or if they did it was sure not to be to a member of the Democratic 
party — from whom all such precious documents are withheld. I say this aa 
an apology for the condition of things that exists in Virginia. But, if they 
could have the same opportunity that has been held out to the North, to see 
for themselves to what condition Democracy has brought the country, they 
would be as willing to throw off the galling yoke as have been the Democracy 
of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, 
all of which they were once proud to number in their ranks. 

I am not prepared to admit that the Democracy of Virginia are more be- 
nighted and ignorant than the Democracy of the other States ; nor are they 
less patriotic, nor are they less interested in good, wholesome, salutary legis- 
lation, if they were only afforded the same facilities for forming a sound and 
correct judgment. 

Have I said too much of the sacrifices this Democratic party is at all times 
prepared to make of principle, or consistency, in obedience to party spirit, and 
party fealty ? Let us see ; and if I have, let me be visited with public con- 
demnation, as one who has calumniated their good name and fame. 

I will not go back into those old, hackneyed questions, such as Internal Im- 
provements by the General Government — nor of what they have professed in 
their platforms, and practiced in Congress — for all that, I discussed in the cam- 
paign of 1856 — in what is commonly known as my African Church speech. I 
will confine myself to issues of a later day. 

In 1848, there was not a Democrat in the Southern States who did not espe- 
cially repudiate and eschew the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty — as set forth 
in Gen. Cass' famous Nicholson letter, and who did not strictly deny its liability 
to such an interpretation. In 185-4, there was not one Southern Democrat in 
either House of Congress that did not vote for this identical Squatter Sove- 
reignty doctrine, which constituted the basis of the iniquitous Kansas-Nebraska 
bill; and now, in 1858, again they are as much opposed to that doctrine as 
they were in 1848. 

Does this, or not, establish their claim to principle or consistency ? 

Again, it was but a few short years since, that the entire South supported 
the Missouri Compromise, in Congress and out of it, as a thing too sacred and 
too holy to be touched. In the Legislature of Virginia it was declared, by a 
vote of 117 to 13, that any attempt to repeal that compromise would be a just 
cause for a dissolution of the Union, and " that it would be resisted at all 
hazards, and to the last extremity." In 1854, every Southern Democrat in 
both Houses of Congress, voted, as a party measure, to repeal that Compro- 
mise, and every Southern Democratic paper, public speaker, and voter, without 
an exception, as far as my knowledge extends, supported them to the very 
echo — and I, myself, was fiercely denounced, as a traitor to the South, for 



16 lilE. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

resisting its repeal ; and there were some whose rash and intemperate zeal so 
far outstripped their Democracy and discretion, as to counsel my expulsion 
from the State for my treasonable opposition to the disturbance of our 
peace. 

Does this, or not, establish their claim to consistency or principle, or does 
it show their readiness to yield both to party dictation and party success ? 

In 1854, non intervention was the universal cry of Democracy, South ; now 
they begin to find non-intervention don't pay, and already they raise the cry 
of intervention, as indispensable to the protection of their property and the 
preservation of the Union. Perhaps they may rest their claim to principle 
and consistency on this sudden transformation. 

They claim to be a State-rights party, and utterly deny that any man can 
be a friend to the rights of the States who does not attach himself to their 
Democratic organization. 

Well! in the course of my reading and my experience, I have known of 
but few instances in which there has been any attempt on the part of the 
General Government to interfere with, or encroach upon the rights of the 
S'ates; and those few are very striking and very remarkable instances, as 
well as of transcendant importance, and of very recent date, and have all 
originated and been sustained by the Democratic party. 

The first case was that of the Lecompton Constitution — in which the doc- 
trine was asserted by a States-rights-Republican Democratic President (for 
that is the title they have assumed to themselves), and strenuously attempted 
to be carried out, in Congress, that it was in the power of the Federal authori- 
ties, to legislate one of the Territories of this Government, as a State into 
the Union, with a Constitution which had never been submitted to the peo- 
ple for ratification, on the avowed ground, that if submitted it would be 
rejected, and against which seven-tenths of the people of that territory were 
then remonstrating and protesting ; a doctrine that struck a death blow at 
the basis and foundation of our revolution ; a doctrine that denied both the 
right and the capacity of the people for self-government; a doctrine, the 
advocacy of which, in the absence of party machinery and party demands, 
there was not one of its advocates within the broad limits of this nation 
whose standing and popularity could have withstood the storm of popular 
indignation and wrath with which he would have been overwhelmed ; a 
doctrine that was the most anti-Democratic, anti-Republican, anti-State rights, 
anti-constitutional, anti-common sense, and anti-common-honcsty doctrine 
that was ever propounded to the American people ; and yet there was not 
one Southern Democrat, in either House of Congress, that had the consistency, 
the principle, or the independence to vote against it. And it is an historical 
fact, never to be forgotten or overlooked, that the only party in this country 
tnat could be found to give it their support was the Democratic-Republican- 
States-riglits party, and that that fraction of the party, claiming "par excel- 
lence," to be the true and genuine Simoti-Pure, States-rights wing of the 
party, gave it the most earnest and active support. 



ME. bott's address. 17 

For my own part, haviDg just returned from abroad, when this question was 
paging with its greatest violence in Congress, I stood by, an inactive, but not 
an iinconc^rned spectator, feeling that if the final result should show that the 
power and influence of the President had become so omnipotent and over- 
whelming, or that the people had become so debased and indifferent to their 
own rights and the enjoyment of free government, as to have submitted 
patiently to such outrageous and intolerable oppression and wrong, that then, 
there was no despotism in the Old World, under which I would not as soon 
have lived as under the tyrannical and iron despotism of Democracy. 

Thanks to God! the doctrine did not prevail ; and thanks to God ! the peo- 
ple are resolved to be left free, to choose their own form of government, in 
defiance of bribes offered on the one hand, and the threats on the other of the 
Democratic-Republican-State-Rights party that now holds the reins of govern- 
ment in its hands, I trust for a limited period only ; for if after this they shall 
be retained in power, the moral effect and virtue of the action of the people 
will have been thrown away. 

Does this action of the party indeed constitute Democracy? If a case par- 
allel to this could occur in England, it would drive any ministry into ever- 
lasting disgrace, if no more. In France, it would produce a revolution that 
no power of government could resist. In Russia, it would be regarded as an 
act of detestable tyranny, against which the serfs themselves would rebel. 
Yet, here, it is claimed as evidence of Democratic consistency, and adherence 
to the principles of true Democracy. 

Look, again, at the question of the admission of Kansas imder a new con- 
stitution. Every Southern Democrat has already voted for its admission, 
under a constitution that the people of Kansas have disavowed, rejected and 
spurned. They were offered admission with their 35,000 population, if they 
would ignore all that had passed, stultify themselves and yiell obedience to 
the dictation of the Federal Executive and Congress; and now, since they 
have indignantly rejected the bribe, and spurned the threats ™^hich accompa- 
nied it — it is recommended by the representative of the Democratic-State- 
Rights party, that one rule shall be adopted for the admission of Kansas, and 
another for Oregon and all the other Territories of the United States. 

May we not ask, in the name of Heaven, what has this Government come to? 
In what direction are we drifting ? What haven are we to reach ? Is this De- 
mocracy? Is this justice? Is this honesty ? Is this constitutional liberty ? Is 
this what our fathers fought for ? Is this State-rights ? Is one territory to be left 
free to form a government to suit itself, and another to be required to frame 
one to suit the President or the Democratic party ? Is this the way the 
President hopes to put down agitation, and restore harmony to our already 
distracted country ? Yet, where is that party which looms up in bold relief, 
for the equality and sovereignty of all the States ? Where is that Democracy 
that is always loud-mouthed in proclaiming the equality and sovereiguty of 
the people ? 

2 



18 ^m. BOITS' ADDRESS. 

But perhaps the most glaring outrage ever jet perpetrated, or proposed 
against the rights of a State, may be found in the action of the Democratic 
party in the Senate of the United States, in relation to the two Democratic 
Senators who were confirmed in their seats, when there were no authorized 
legal contestants to dispute them, and at a time when their votes were sup- 
posed to be necessary for the passage of the Lecompton Constitution, or the 
English Montgomery bill, as it was called — and who were alleged to have 
been elected in violation of the Constitution and laws of Indiana; and now, 
when the Legislature of that State has elected two other Senators, according 
to the provisions and requirements of their Constitution, and sent them, as 
the representatives of her sovereignty, to Washington, they find the doors of 
the Senate chamber rudely closed against them, on the ground that the Sen- 
ate being made the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own 
members, the case is adjudged by their own ex parte decision, and they have 
no power to go behind their own act, to ascertain whether or not fraud or 
wrong has been committed. This case partakes of the nature of the Lecomp- 
ton case, and raises the question, as to whether the Senators of Indiana shall 
be elected by the legislative body of that State or by the Democratic party in 
the Senate of the United States. 

I have no time to enter into an argument of this case, but call attention to 
it as one oi grave and great consideration, which would not have been raised 
with any Southern State in this Union ; and if it had been, would have led 
to consequences ever to be deplored — and as it is, I presume, we have not 
yet heard the last of it — for a greater outrage I cannot well conceive — yet I 
have heard no one voice raised against it by the State-rights party of the 
South. 

One other attempt at encroachment on the rights of the States must not be 
overlooked, and to which I beg to call the attention of the country, and I can 
conceive of few cases, calling more loudly for the anathemas and denuncia- 
tions of the State-rights party, and for their interposition in defence of the 
rights of the States. 

I allude to the recommendation of Mr. Buchanan in his message to Con- 
gress, in 185V, and again, after twelve mouths deliberation, repeated in 1S58, 
that Congress shall pass a Bankrupt law, to be applied to the State corpora- 
tions, or Banking Institutions created by the States. That is to say — the 
power being conceded to the State governments to create incorporations, they 
now claim for the general government the power to destroy. 

Each government is supposed to be distinct in their several organizations; 
each State government, sovereign and independent of all the rest, so far as their 
State governments are concerned, and each likewise, separate, distinct and 
independent of the Federal Government in the exorcise of all those rights not 
granted to the general government. 

Yet, here is a State-rights Democratic President claiming the power, and 
twice recommending the passage of a law by which Congress takes under its 



MR. BOTTS' ADDEESS. 19 

guardianship the institutions of the States, as created by State authority. 
Take my own State for example, and I only take that because I know more of 
the interest held by that State in her banking institutions than I do of any 
other. 

In Virginia, there is not an incorporated bank in which the State itself is 
not a large stockholder, nor is there a railroad corporation in which it has 
not an interest of three-fifths or more. A crisis, such as we had in 1857, comea 
on ; the banks throughout the country suspend specie payments ; they apply 
to the State Legislatures to legalize the suspension, which is done, and then 
comes in the Congressional law to force them into bankruptcy. Here is a con- 
flict between the State and Federal governments — which is to prevail? As a 
State rights man, always prepared to stand up ccanfully for every legitimate 
right of the States, I maintain that it is a paradox to suppose that the power 
is anywhere given to one government to create, and to another to destroy. 
If the State of New York has the constitutional and legal power to incorpo- 
rate her banks, she has the power to authorize or legalize a suspension of 
specie payments, whenever she thinks the interests of her' people require it ; 
and there is no power on earth that can legally interfere with it. The gov- 
ernment of the United States has no more authority to counteract the legisla- 
tion of Xew York, than the Russian or British government would have. Yet, 
there is the proposition, a second time made, after an interval of a year, by 
a State-rights President; and if the Stale-rights party do not adopt it, it is 
because they have lost all confidence in the President of their choice, or be- 
cause they regard him as a setting star, whilst some star af greater magnitude 
is rising in a different quarter; but certainly, they have raised no outcry 
against it, as an attack on the rights of the States ; and coming from the head 
of the party, they must be held responsible for it as a democratic proposition 
until they have unequivocally repudiated and condemned it. 

Where then rests the claim of that party to the credit of being either the 
States rights or Democratic party of this country ? 

Within the last eighteen months we have passed through a commercial re- 
vulsion that has destroyed confidence, blasted credit, locked up capital, crip- 
pled the revenues of the country, left the public treasury bankrupt, brought 
us all into a condition that requires a prompt and speedy remedy, and the 
Democratic party, that is responsible for the whole of it, continues to present 
to the country, through the public press, in their political speeches and public 
documents, every variety of cause but the true one. 

Certainly, there was some leading cause for such a catastrophe, which U 
worthy of investigation, and which if not removed, or if permitted to con- 
tinue, must lead to similar results, at some future, perhaps no very distant 
day. The men of means and capital — the men of business and energy — who 
are most interested in looking into and correcting this great evil— are so 
engrossed in their daily pursuit after the almighty dollar, each one struggling 
with his neighbor to see who can be the first to grasp it, and who seem not 



20 ME. BOTTS' ADDREvSS. 

to care either for the cause or for the remedy — and upon whom, at last, the 
necessity will devolve, of demanding in a voice not to be disregarded, such a 
change in the political economy of the State as will secure them against simi- 
lar disasters in future — arc those who interest themselves the least about it, 
and, without stopp'ng to examirae for themselves, suffer the most idle and 
absurd theories to pass current, as authority no more to be disputed than 
divine revelations. 

We can engage in no more important task on this day of jubilee, than to 
institute inquiries and set the public mind to work upon this all-absorbing 
question. 

Some (and among them the President) ascribe it to the expansion of bank 
credit, and he declares that these "periodical revulsions, which have existed 
in our past history, must continue to return at intervals as long as our present 
unlimited system of bank credits shall prevail ;" and the only remedy he 
suggests is the passage of a law, by the general government, to force the 
banking institutions of the States into liquidation and bankruptcy, whenever 
another revulsion shall occur that will drive them into a state of suspension, 
although suspension may be legalized by the authorities from which they 
derive their existence ; and occur again it must, if the present system is not 
speedily changed. 

Let us grant for a moment that the President is right, in ascribing this wide- 
spread ruin to its true cause. In what manner does his proposition, to lock 
the stable door after the horse had been stolen, remedy the evil ? It must be 
perceived that, if the banks could foresee or apprehend the trouble they 
might have to encounter, they would contract their issues in time to avoid the 
danger. But they cannot, and did not, and, therefore, a Bankrupt law, which 
would have a final and not a remedial effect, would have answered no bene- 
ficial purpose. 

Kow, I put it to the intelligent business men of New York to say if such a 
Bankrupt latv had been in existence in 1857 — and instead of the suspension of 
your banks being legalized by the State Legislature they had been forced into 
bankrupcy — whether it would have proved a remedy for, or an aggravation of 
the evil. 

Would the country, at this d<ay, have been better or worse off than it is nowj 
if all the banks in the United States that suspended specie payments had been 
forced into liquidation and closed? 

I venture to say that such a state of desolation and universal ruin never fell 
to the lot of any nation of people as would have fallen upon us. It was bad 
enough as it was ; but we have reason to be thankful that this democratic ex- 
pedient had not been resorted to in time to have made it a hundred-fold 
worse. 

But, is it true that there was such an expansion; or if there was, that it 
was the cause not only of the unexampled national distress in this country, 
but that our banking system had deranged the monetary affairs of the whole 



ME. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 21 

commercial globe ; or is this a mere expedient of Democracy to divert atten- 
idon from the real cause? In the first place — if it were true, it would only 
prove the necessity for putting down all such ill-regulated institutions, or of 
establishing a National Bank that would, as in all other countries is done, fur- 
nish a curren 'y tliat would constitute a circulating medium for its own citizens, 
with which you could travel and trade in any part of the Union, without a 
discount at every turn, and that would, as the old bank did, keep the State 
banks in check, and correct the tendency on their part to over issues. 

I do not propose a bank of the United States. I only mean to express, as 
my individual opinion, that no financial agent of the Government has yet been 
adopted or proposed, that in all respects was more free from constitutional 
objections, or answer so good a purpose, as would a properly guarded and 
well conducted national bank. But go on and let the Democracy continue the 
operations of their experimental sub-treasury, which withdraws $80,000,000 a 
year from the purposes of commerce, trade, and manufactures, and we shall 
all see what will be the end of it. 

I will only take occasion to say here, that I have always believed it was a 
mere question of time, and that, sooner or later, we shall be compelled to resort 
to it again, unless something far different and better than tlie sub-treasury 
should in the meantime be suggested. 

But everybody knows that there was no such universal expansion, and every 
intelligent man ought to know that if there had been it would have produced 
no such results. 

Large expansions certainly lead to over-trading, and over-trading leads to 
ruin and distress on the part of those who indulge in it; but whilst that over- 
trading is confinded at home, neither the capital is lost, nor is the property 
destroyed. There is always something to represent both; but when you 
trade abroad, and spend a great deal more money in foreign countries, for 
articles of annual consumption, than your income or means will justify, then 
comes the ruin — which all the banks and bankrupt laws in Christendom can- 
not avert — and that over-trading may be done upon the credit of the importer, 
as well as upon the credit or expansion of the banks ; but this is not the 
place that I propose to discuss that question — I will come to that after I have 
disposed of the causes assigned by Democratic wisdom and financial skill. 

The next reason urged, which seems not to have heen without its influence, 
is that our people were too extravagant, lived in costly houses, bought costly 
furniture, kept luxurious tables, drove fast horses, and finally built loo many 
railroads. Admit that all this was done, I pray to know, how that could have 
produced national distress that would have affected the financial affairs of 
England, France, Austria, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, 
and all the rest of the commercial world. 

Suppose a man comes suddenly to an estate of a million, and he builds 
costly houses — furnishes them extravagantly — pays high prices for fast horses 
— keeps an extravagant table — lives greatly beyond bis income, and finally 



22 MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

runs through his whole estate by extravagance, dissipation and gambling — 
this will certainly occasion individual and family distress ; but how the nation 
can be injured by the accumulation of a million being distributed among 
the bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, paper-hangers, butchers, bakers, 
merchants, and breeders of fast horses, or gamblers, all of whom spend it 
again, 1 confess is far beyond my comprehengion. 

In like manner, in regard to the construction of railroads. We have re- 
ceived from California some six or seven hundred millions of gold in the last 
twelve years. Now, suppose that has all been laid out in railroads, they have 
certainly served to open the country — develope its resources — increase its 
productions — furnish the way to market, and have increased the value of the 
lands greatly beyond their cost — and although the stockholder may not re- 
ceive a dividend on his stock, and may be a great sufferer and loser, yet 
neither the work, nor the money that built it has been thrown away. Sub- 
scriptions to these stocks may have ruined those who built the roads, and 
occasioned individual and family distress, yet they would not produce a great 
national disturbance, for the money has only gone out of the pocket of one 
man, who had it before, into the pockets of many that were without it. It 
has gone from the stockholders to the contractor ; and from the contractor to 
his laborers and manufacturers ; and from them, through their operatives, to 
the butchers, bakers, merchants, grocers, boot and shoe makers, hatters, farm- 
ers, &c., &c.; and has thus been scattered through the general community — 
by which the nmltitude are benefited, although the few may be impoverished ; 
and the more that is spent by the millionaires of the country in this way, the 
better for the whole. But, when, instead of digging your own coal,' and 
making your own iron, and giving employment to your own labor, you leave 
it idle and unprofitable, and you send $500,000,000 of the seven, out of the 
country, to be laid out in the iron and other manufactures of Europe, never to 
be returned, then you send out what ought to be kept at home, and thus im- 
poverish the nation. 

These truths must be to apparent and self-evident to allright-thinkiug men, 
that I will not occupy more time in refuting Democratic reasons for our disas- 
ters, but come at once to what I submit to the intelligence of the country as 
the true cause of all our pecuniary troubles. It is because we have fastened 
upon us, by Democratic legislation, the wildest, most absurd, most unexam. 
pled, and most self-destructive financial and commercial system that ever 
dragged a nation down from the highest eminence of prosperity, which we 
are entitled to enjoy, to the lowest depth of desolation and ruin, that the un- 
exampled resources of our country and the superhuman energies of our 
people would enable Democratic misrule to impose upon us. What arc 
they ? 

You have first, as a financial experiment, in the form of what is called a 
Sub-treasury, which, if put into actual, practical operation, as intended and 
provided for by those who framed it, would display its ridiculous and deformed 



MR. BOTTS' ADDEESS. 23 

features in such a light as would, within thirty days, drive it out of existence ; 
but which, violated as it is, and is obliged to be every day and every hour, is 
anew-fancied invention, devised by those who were opposed to all banks, 
and proposed to have no other currency but that of precious metals — the ope- 
ration of which, as now acted on, is to collect the revenue of the country, 
amounting, as it has done, to from sixty to saventy millions of dollars, to be 
locked up in a strong box, and never taken out, except for the purpose of 
defraying the expenses of the Government ; and being paid out to those who 
had dealings with the Government, about as fast as it is paid in at the Custom 
Houses. This $"70,000,000 is not only withdrawn from the channels of trade, 
in which it might be safely and profitably employed, but is kept going round 
and| round in a constant circle, by paying in and paying out — unseen and 
unfelt, unknown, as far as its benefits are concerned, to those who are engaged 
in commercial, manufacturing, agricultural, or other industrial pursuits, and 
had, for all purposes except those of the Government itself, as well be lying 
buried in the bowels of the earth in Cahfornia, as in the Sub-treasury at Wash- 
ington or New York. 

The contractor who has'the good fortune to be a favorite with the Govern- 
ment, the members of Congress who have appropriated to themselves $G,000 
for nine months' service, or rather for nine months neglect of the public inter- 
ests — the Judges, members of the Cabinet, President, clerks, and other offi- 
cials of the Government, who have a certain fixed pay at all seasons, and amid 
all calamities, are interested in this $'70,000,000, but nobody else derives any 
more benefit from it than if it had been left undug in the mountains, or un- 
washed from the streams of California. Whilst that same amount of 70,000,000, 
properly employed in the channels of trade, and forming a basis for a sub- 
stantial and indispensable paper circulation, and yet answering all the pur- 
poses of the Government, would give new life, a fresh impulse, and masculine 
vigor to business of every kind, that would make every individual in the coun- 
try who was willing and able to work, contented, prosperous and happy, espe- 
cially when brought in connection with a judicious commercial system, which 
I shall next consider. 

But this is your Democratic financial system — the great panacea for all 
monetary ills, which locks up all the money that is not sent abroad, whilst 
you may boast of a commercial system, which sends abroad all that is not 
locked up. 

Great efforts have been made to involve in mystery, and to treat as one of 
the occult sciences, what is termed '■'■political economy.'''' Learned writers and 
closet theorists have pretended to invest the subject with a degree of profun- 
dity beyond the reach of common understandings, and our unfortunate coun- 
try has been subjected to the control of a class of statesmen, or of persons 
occupying the position that statesmen only ought to fill — who, disregarding 
the example and admonition of all our own most enlightened men, commencing 
with Washington, and those to whom we are indebted for the Constitution 
under which we Uve, and coming down to within the last few years, when the 



24 MPw BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

country could boast of a Claj, a "Webster, and an Adams, shutting tbeir eyes 
to the light* of their own observation and experience, have pertinaciously 
insisted upon having this government adniiuistercd upon the antiquated notions 
of one Adam Smith, who never dreamed of applying his theory to a govern- 
ment like ours; for he wrote long before, and died about the time our govern- 
ment was formed; but who recommended a policy for England, which Eng- 
land had then, and has always had, too much wisdom to adopt or listen to ; 
until by their experiments we are reduced to a condition that has destroyed 
our manufacturing interests, crippled our commerce, overwhelmed us with debt, 
and brought this great Government of the United States, that ought to shoot far 
ahead of the mightiest in resources and wealth, to a state of bankrupcy in a 
time of profound peace ; and which has now to support itself by loans, and the 
issue of treasury notes, or promises to pay, which they are not able to re- 
deem. Now, what is pohtical economy ? Nothing upon the face of the earth, 
but domestic economy, on a larger scale, the only difference being that do- 
mestic economy is applied to individuals and families, and pohtical economy 
to political bodies or states. 

Now, let us test this question of political economy by the more simple and 
familiar analogy of what we understand as domestic economy. 

Suppose a farmer having a very large estate, with laborers enough to culti- 
vate his lands to great advantage, and by diversifying their employments has 
been enabled for a series of years not only to supply all dependent upon him 
with whatever was consumed upon the estate, but to lay up a large siir[)lus at 
the end of each year for the benefit of his children. He then engages a mana- 
ger to superintend his business, who has been studying Adam Smi h's theory 
of Free Trade, and he concludes that his employer had been doing a very un- 
profitable business, as he could buy all he consumed for less money than it 
cost him to make it; he enters into a calculation, and finds that whilst it, costs 
him fifty cents a bushel for all the corn he can make, some neighbors, whose 
lands are more productive and whose labor is cheaper than his own, can sell it 
for forty-five cents ; that his potatoes cost him forty cents, whilst his neigh- 
bor can sell for thirty-five; the pork he raises costs him six dollars per hun- 
dred weight, when he can buy for five and a half; his cotton cloth costs 
ten cents a yard when he can buy for nine ; his shoes costs eighty cents a 
pair, and he can buy for seventy-five, and so on with wheat, oats, barley, 
beans, hay and rye, and throughout the whole catalogue of articles he could 
produce for himself; and he were to conclude : " This thing of working my own 
farm, and giving employment to my own labor, is all humbug, and each year's 
operation brings the estate nearer and nearer to ruin. 

"I will stop it, and try Mr. Adam Smith's plan of free trade for a while, and 
buy where I can buy cheapest, except a few articles, such aa cot ion and 
tobacco, which the climate and poil of my neighbor will not enable him to raise ; 
and as I cannot find a market for all the cotton and tobacco the estate could 
make, I will employ just one-half my force and leave the rest in idleness, to 



MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 25 

take care of themselves. So he says to his people, my good women, you may 
burn yom- spumiag wheels and your looms, for I shall have no more spinning 
and weaving done on this fatm. My good men, you can lay aside your ploughs 
and your wagons and carts, and shovels and hoes, for I shall raise no more 
corn, nor potatoes, nor hogs, nor wheat, nor oats, nor hay, nor barley, nor 
beans ; and one-half of you may go about your bu^iuess, as I shall have no 
use for you during the year." The laborers ask, "Well, master, what are we to 
do ? how are we to live if you won'o cultivate your fields and give us employ- 
ment ?" "Ah !" says he, " that is your business ; the plantation is large enough 
to hold you all, and you must shift for yourselves as best you can, but you cannot 
do any more work for me. " "But, master, we cannot live without food and 
clothing, and you won't let us stay on the farm and starve or go naked ?" " No, 
of course not, but I had rather buy than make your food and clothing, for I 
can get it cheaper elsewhere than I can produce it." So he turns one-half of 
his lands out of cultivation, and one-half of his force out of employment. 

At the end of the year, instead of having a well regulated discipline on his 
farm, everything is in confusion — a general insubordination prevails, the un- 
employed hands have been indulging in all sorts of dissipation and vice, 
drinking and stealing, fighting and fiUbusteriug, and whatever else is likely to 
accompany a state of idleness [ and instead of having a handsome surplus of 
money to hand over to his employer, the cotton and tobacco he has made, 
have not paid for much more than half he has had to buy ; and he has conse- 
quently, gone largely in debt. But still enamored with his free trade theory, 
he continues the- system until the estate becomes impoverished and almost 
bankrupt. Tbis is what would be called the domestic economy, or the econo- 
my of an individual, on the free trade plan. 

The employer now finds it necessary to change his manager, and he selects 
one of good, sound practical common sense, who relies more upon facts than 
theories, and more upon experience than books. He goes to work and brings 
order out of confusion ; he sets all the hands on the farm to work, brings all 
the land he can into cultivation, diversifies the employment of his labor, pro- 
duces not only enough for the consumption of the whole estate, but to exchange 
for the articles of tea and coffee, brandy and wines, silks, laces, satins, vel- 
vets, and such articles as are used in the family, and cannot be made at home, 
and then hands over, from the surplus of production, a handsome sum of 
monpy to his employer to be added to his general stock. And this is what is 
called the domestic economy, or the economy of an individual, on the plain of 
protection to home industry and home labor. Contrast the difference between 
the two, and say under which system you would prefer to Hve, and which 
manager you would prefer to employ to manage your own estates. 

Now, if the domestic economy, practiced by the buying farmer, leads him 
to ruin, and the domestic economy practiced by the selling farmer leads him 
to wealth, why will not the same policy lead to the same results when the 
example of either ia fallowed by neighbor after neighbor, and farmer after 



26 MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

farmer, until it has extended itself throughout the whole State, and thus 
becomes what is termed the political economy of the State? And between 
the policy, or economy of these two farmers, you have, illustrated, in a sim- 
ple and intelligible form, the whole dillerence between the policy or economy 
recommended by our best and wisest men, from Washington to Henry Clay 
and Daniel Webster, on the one hand, to Adam Smith and John C. Calhoun 
on the other. 

Go with me one step further, and imagine that this great national Airm 
called the United States, with its millions of laborers, all of whom are to be 
Clothed and fed, whether in employment or otherwise, should be under the 
direction of a national steward or overseer, such as Polk, Pierce, or Buchanan, 
who should have a fancy for the free trade or buying abroad system, and 
that Great Britain, France, &c., are the neighbors who raise and sell cheap, 
and the whole problem of free trade and protection is solved, so that it can 
be comprehended by the most common understanding. 

But, it is maintained that our Government has nothing to do with the labor 
of its citizens, and that it is a violation of its duty to protect its industry. 
Was a greater fallacy, or to use a stronger term, was a grosser absurdity ever 
before, or elsewhere, uttered, by men who claimed to be practical states- 
men, and who assumed the high responsibility of administering a govern- 
ment ! 

What were the original objects in the formation of governments ? Was it 
not, in great part, to protect the lives and the property of the weaker from the 
stronger membera of society? And whilst all acknowledge the obligation to 
protect the property of each individual citizen, it is held to be a violation of 
duty to protect the industry and labor of the citizen, which is the foundation 
and source of all property. 

Such doctrines deserve to be characterized as discreditable to an enlight- 
ened civi ization, and as lit only for the darker and more barbarous ages. 
England, France, Austria, Prussia, the Free Cities of Germany, Denmark, 
Sweden, Piussia, and even China, all repudiate so visionary and ruinous a 
policy. Others take example from the lessons of nature, as exemplified in 
the workings of the bee, that ncTcr permits a drone to encumber the hive, 
but requires each one to become an active, industrious member of society, not 
only supplying itself with honey during the summer, but laying up a common 
stock for the necessities of winter. 

But, they say again, is it right to compel a man to buy at home when he can 
buy cheaper abroad? My answer, in the first place is, I deny the fact that 
be can buy cheaper abroad, for every man who knows anything about it, knows 
that nothing so much reduces prices as home competition, and that every- 
thing in the market bears a proportionate price ; so that if the tailor has to 
pay his boot maker seven instead of five dollars for a pair of boots, the tailor 
in turn makes the boot maker pay him thirty instead of twenty-five dollars for 
his coat ; that if the doctor has to pay his butcher two tihilliugs a pound for 



ME. BOTTS' ADDEESS. 27 

beef instead of one, the doctor in turn raises his price to twelve shillings 
instead of eight for his daily visits ; and if the agriculturist has to pay the 
manufacturer ten cents instead of eight for cotton cloth, the manufacturer in 
turn pays the agriculturist sixty cents instead of fifty for his corn, and 
twelve dollars instead of ten for his pork, and so on through all the ramifica- 
tions of society. This condition of things was fully illustrated by the general 
prices of all things in California a few years ago, when labor was worth !f;20 a 
day, and an orange or an apple would sell for $1,00, and a common meal for 
f ve. 

But, in the second place, I answer that if any man or set of men, en^an-ed 
in any particular branch of business, are required to give a little more for the 
article manufactured at home than for that obtained from abroad, he or they 
have no right to ask that the legislation of the country should be re"-ulated 
and shaped for his, or their benefit, against the interests of the great body of 
the whole. If they desire to go abroad to purchase, let them go abroad, they 
have a right to do it; but they have no right to require or to ask Government 
to adopt a system of legislation that will bring the foreign article from abroad 
for their benefit, when it is to operate injuriously to the general community 
at home. And I hope this view of the subject will be well considered. 

Let us see how this poHcy operates, particularly upon the articles of coal 
and iron, the chief agents of the greatness, and wealth, and power of a state ; 
and the same argument that applies to them will apply to every other article 
that can be manufactured in the country. 

In Bennsylvauia and Virginia, as well as in other States, we have moun- 
tains of iron, on one side, and mountains of coal on the other, with hundreds 
and thousands of unemployed hands, covering their sides and their base, 
ready to take them from the bowels of the earth, and mould that iron into 
form for national defenses, for railroad, agricultural, manufacturing, and all 
other industrial purpose ; and yet, by the policy of our GovernmenT, we say, 
no ! let the iron be imbedded in the earth, let the coal rest where Xa'ture has 
formed it, let the labor remain in idleness— there is iron, and coal, and labor 
in Europe that we prefer to employ ; it is better for us to send our money 
abroad, and encourage the industry of those who are foreign to us, than keep 
that money at home and lay it out in your labor, and our own mineral 
resources. You have no claims on the friendly legislation of this Govern- 
ment. It is better for us to pay $4.5 a ton for iron in Europe, than to pay 
$50 to you ; and, therefore, you may starve, or steal, or rot, but you can get 
no help from us. 

And there these poor laborers, with families of children fiimishing for food, 
stand day after day, with their arms folded in idleness and poverty, in anguish 
and sorrow, to look upon the iron horse, as it passes swiftly by their doors, 
freighted with the iron from abroad, to supply the demands of those 
■who would lend a willing ear to their supplications for work, but that this 
Democratic Government has closed the furnaces and the foundries, and the 



28 rni. 

manufactories, and left them no alternative but to purchase nbroad or go 
without — and tliis is regarded as a strict test of Democracy ; and these poor, 
deluded, misguided men will go the next day to the polls and bless the hand 
that smites them, by hurrahing for Democracy, and voting for the very men 
that have caused their ruin. 

When I was in Venice, a little over a year ago, after visitlnf^ other places 
of notoriety and interest, I went to the old Ducal Palace, in which, in former 
days, the Inquisition was held and the torture was inOictcd upon so many 
helpless and innocent thousands, in the days of the Republic. I passed from 
hall to hall, through the chambers of the Council of Ten to the Council of 
Three ; then down, down, down, into the deep, dark dungeons btlow, shut 
out from the clear light of God and the pure air of flea- en ; where no ray, 
but that of the dim light of the guide, even at this ddv, can penetrate; 
where instruments of torture and human bones liy mouldered and crumbled 
into dust. I passed up again, to the Biidge of Sighs, which leads to that por- 
tion of the building now usi-d as a prison house, and for what other purposes 
we were not permitted to know; and as I stood in profound meditation on 
that bridge, I asked myself the question — "In what name, and under what 
disguise has the greatest amount of revolting wickedntss, and hideous sin 
been committed ?" And I answered to myself — ^'' Religion^ Next, I asked — 
"In what name, and under what disguise, has the greatest amount of wrong 
and injustice been doae?" And I answered to myself, "//Miicc." And, lastly, 
"In what name, and under what disguise, has the greatest amount of deception, 
insincerity, and imposition been practiced upon the incredulity of a confiding, 
honest-minded, and patriotic people?" And I answered unhesitatingly " De- 
mocraci/." 

But to return to the subject. All men will admit thit if a man possessing 
an income of $10,000 a year spends ^20,000 he must, sooner or later come to 
the end of his estate; and, I presume, none will be hirdy enough to question 
that the same rule, and the same result, will attend a nation that annually 
spends millions more than its productions will yield. Let us sec what has 
been the practical working of free trade and protection. 

Under the protective tariff of '42 our imports in five years, from 1843 to 
1847, amounted to $405,590,672 ; and our exports, during the same time, 
amounted to ft5'27, 900,344 ; showing an excess of exp-Tts, or a balance of 
trade, in our favor, of $02,375,072, and under the operations of that tariff, 
this balance of trade was going on, steadily increasing, having in the last 
year of its operation (1847,) reached the sum of $34,317,249. The country 
was rapidly recovering from the calamitous results of low duties, or the free 
trade policy growing out of the compromise act of 1832, under which the 
great revulsion of 1837 took place, and which was one of the prominent causes 
of Mr. Van IJuren's defeat in 1840. 

But this was not a Democratic measure. It was a part of Mr. Clay's Ameri- 
can system, and to defeat him it was necessary to renounce and condemn his 



29 



policy, without regard to the consequences resulting to the country; and that 
law of '42 was repealed, and the tariff of '46, or free trade tariff, as it was 
called, was substituted in its stead. 

Now let us see what was the operation of this tariff, during the next suc- 
ceeding eight years, for I have not brought my researches down below the 
year 1855. 

During these eight years, our imports amounted to the sum of $1,591,475,- 
608, whilst our exports amounted to only $1,328,141,909, showing an excess 
or balance of trade against us, of $263,331,906 ; and that, too, under the fraud- 
ulent invoices that the President, in his last annual message to Congress, is 
obliged, reluctantly, to confess, have been made under the Democratic 
ad valorem system of duties. 

And here I will remark, that a habit has, of late years, crept into the Trea- 
sury department, of classifying, under the head of exports, all the gold and 
silver, the permanent, fixed basis of all the currency of the country, which it 
is the object of all trade to receive, and keep in exchange for the perishable 
productions of industry — thereby creating the general impression that the 
exports, as enumerated in the returns, constitute a portion of the raw mate- 
rials or articles manufactured from it, or other ordinary productions of the 
country ; and thus our exports are magnified so as to make our sales, on the 
balance sheet, approximate, as nearly as possible, to our purchases — as, for 
example, in enumerating the exports for the year 1857, will be found in gold 
and silver coin, $28,777,372, and of gold and silver bullion, $31,300,980, 
making the sum of $60,078,352 of the precious metals, which have been 
sent over to pay for the excess of our purchases ; just as if it were of the per- 
ishable articles of cotton, rice, tobacco, or cotton cloths. To this may be 
added, as furnishing another delusive view of the subject, the re-exportation 
of all manufactured articles that have previously been imported. 

Of our exports in '57, amounting to $338,985,065, including the articles 
already mentioned, we exported only about $30,000,000 of manufactured 
goods, as I have lately seen ; whilst the exports of England were, in round 
numbers, about $510,000,000, and nearly all of manufactured goods — a very 
large proportion of which was from the raw material obtained from us — 
worked up, and sent back to us, amongst the rest, with the cost of English 
labor, which, with all other additional expense, we had to pay. This will serve 
to show the encouragement given by English statesmen, and English policy — 
and I may properly add, by A.merican statesmen and American policy, to 
English labor, in preference to our own. 

France exported, during the same year, upwards of $370,000,000 ; it may 
be said, almost, entirely and exclusively of goods mamifactnred by the labor 
of France ; thus showing the wisdom of the French government, too, in 
giving employment to the labor and industry of their people ; whilst our 
democratic rulers hold that it violates the duties and obligations of govern- 
ment to adopt a system of legislation friendly to the labor and industry of its 
own citizen. 



30 MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

Can any Government on earth live and thrive under such a system as this, 
and will not the people talce the matter into their own hands before a general 
state of ruin and desolation stares us all in the face ? 

But the President says, in his message, "the tariff of 1857 had no agency 
in bringing about this result," that is, of the disaster of that year. Certainly 
not! It was all done before; and nothing could then have stayed the hurri- 
cane that swept over the country and the world, and which would have been 
brought on long before it was, but for the unexpected and unforeseen influx of 
gold from California in the first place, all of which has gone into the work- 
shops of Europe, and enriched their laborers — and the Irish famine in the se- 
cond, that created so large a demand for breadstuffs abroad, and which yield- 
ed a temporary relief — and the unlimited credit we had in Europe, where 
money was worth much less than it was here. But the first moment a panic 
prevailed, as was occasioned by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust Com" 
pany, and demands for payment were made, then pay-day had arrived, and 
everything tottered to its foundation. 

There are some who pretend not to see how our difficulties in the United 
States so affected the whole world. 

Let such an one set 1,000 bricks in a line on their ends, as the boys do, 
and then throw down the first against the second, and the operations will be 
explained to them. The trouble commenced here — and if Brown, Brothers & 
Co., or Duncan, Sherman & Co. (I only instance the names of these gentle- 
men for illustration, and because they are considered the safest and strongest 
in the country) could not have met their engagements to Mr. George Peal)ody, 
of London, or Brown, Shiply & Co., of Liverpool, as other parties could not, 
and did not, it would not be surprising if Brown, Shiply & Co., and George 
Peabody could not have met their engagements with theirfriends and credit- 
ors on the Continent ; and so through all the various and multitudinous en- 
gagements and obligations between the United States and the rest of the world. 
If A don't pay B, K can't pay C, C can't pay D, and so on, or if, like the bricks, 
A knocks down B, B in turn knocks down C, and so on through the alphabet 

To be more specific : At the time this difficulty came on, the indebtedness on 
this side of the water to Europe may reasonably be estimated at not less than six 
hundred millions of dollars. I say this, because, about the yearl852, Mr. Abbott 
Lawrence, who was then our Minister to England, took much pains to ascertain 
the amount then due, and he estimated it at S>150,000,000. Taking, then, 
the balance of the trade against us in that year, of $40,141,548, and that 
again of 1853, which was $01,202,196, and in 1854, $00,499,589, and in 1855, 
$38,899,205 — making, in the.se four years, the sum of $200,742,538, which, 
with a balance in the year 1S5('), that I have not at hand, should be added to 
the $450,000,000, together with the interest that had accumulated (as the 
gold and silver shipped by steamer after steamer was not enough to keep 
this item down), it will be seen that $000,000,000 is rather within than beyond 
the probable amount of our iudebtcdness, on every account, to Europe, 



ME. BOTTS ADDRESS. 31 

Now, suppose thig amount of paper in various forms, wiiich liad served as 
trading capital abroad, is suddenly suspended— a panic ensues, and there is a 
general failure on this side to meet the obligations due on the other. All con- 
fidence in this species of capital is at once destroyed, and it no longer answers 
the purposes of trade or exchange. Is it dilBcult to understand how it would 
affect the monetary concerns of the whole world? 

What portion of this enormous debt has been extinguished by fair bona 
fide payments — how much has been liquidated by bankruptcy' — how much has 
been compromised at twenty, thirty or fifty cents in the dollar, I have no 
means of forming a conjecture. But we will suppose it all to have been paid 
off— which is very far from the fact — and that we have now to take a fresh 
start; what, then, is to be our future, under the present system, if it shall be 
continued. 

In a little while, Yankee ingenuity and enterprise — I use the term Yankee, 
in its national sense — aided by the unexampled resources of the country wil 
begin to push matters ahead again. There will be a parti<il recovery from 
the present depression ; confidence in American securities will gradually be 
restored ; heavy importations will be made ; the European manufacturers will 
get the entire control of our markets ; the balance of trade will go on steadily in- 
creasing, from year to year, against us; another enormous debt will be created ; 
the sub-treasury will be replenished ; the gold and silver, not required for 
revenue and for locking up, will be sent out of the country, as heretofore, to 
keep down, as much as possible, the rapidly accumulating interest ; then 
some bubble will burst, or another Ohio Life and Trust Insurance Company 
will fail ; a panic will set in ; confidence will again be destroyed ; payments 
will be demanded ; there will be nothing left in the country to meet them ; 
the banks will be compelled, in order to save themselves, to protect their 
debtors ; a suspension comes again, another universal " smash up " will ensue ; 
and we shall have the same scenes to go over again that we have just passed 
through ; and every cause but the right one will be assigned for it by those 
who have produced all the mischief. 

Why do I say this ? Because " Like begets like,'" and similar causes pro- 
duce similar results. Because this has been the operation of the system 
whenever it has been tried, and will be the operation again, if continued, 
just as surely as that a well-constructed locomotive will go ahead when a full 
head of steam is applied. It is the natural working of the machinery, and it 
cannot be avoided. 

The natural instincts of " a burnt child" teach him "to dread the fire." 
Why will not the common sense of grown men, who have been scorched 
almost to a cinder by Democracy, teach them also to dread a further repeti- 
tion of those fatal experiments which the political Dr. Sangrados at Washing- 
ton have already resolved to try. 

Yet, this visionary, speculative, experimental and destructive closet theory 
of Adam Smith, taken up by Mr. Calhoun (who, although a bright, but erratic 
genius, was always wanting in that first great element of true greatness, to 



32 



wit, practical utility), but this theory, taken up by him, and prcsseJ by the 
peculiar school of politicians who followed wherever he chose to lead, hold- 
ing, as they did, the balance of power between the two great parties of the 
country — forced it upon the Democracy as a party measure, and it was sub- 
stituted for the matured wisdom and teachings of Washington, the elder Ad- 
ams, Jcfl'erson, Madison, Monroe (Calhoun himself in 181G-17), Adams, 
Jackson, Clay, Webster, and all of the most prominent of their cotempora- 
ries ; and by that inexorable and unyielding rule of the party, of which I 
have already spoken, it has been adhered to with all the tenacity of death, 
notwithstanding its bitter, poisonous, and life-destroying fruits have been 
seen, and felt and tasted. 

In surveying the present condition of the country, the task would be but 
imperfectly performed if we were to overlook the present condition of the 
Public Treasury, the expenditures of Government, and the means by which it 
is now carried on. But I shall not dwell long upon it; I shalPonly say so 
much as will be sufficient to attract public attention to it, and I shall simply 
present it as it is exhibited by the President's message to Congress, but in a 
more simple, and I hope, more intelligible form. 

It appears, then, that on the 1st day of June, 1857, the commencement of 
the fiscal year, there was §17, 710, 114.27 surplus in the Treasury. 

When the troubles of 1857 broke out, the Administration, coriGdent that 
their favorite party scheme of the Sub-treasury was beyond the reach of these 
periodical revulsion?, as Mr. Buchanan calls them (and, by-thc-by, if he had 
investigated the matter a little more closely, he would have found that these 
periods had always followed close on the heels of low duties and free trade, 
and never under a protective duty), were engaged in the lucrative business 
of buying up the bonds of the United States, not then due for some fifteen 
years, at a premium of 10 or 18 per cent., as they had several times done 
before, for the privilege of unlocking the Sub-treasury door, and restoring to 
the channels of the trade what, as I have said before, should never have 
been withdrawn from it; and having disposed of $9,084,537.99 in this way, 
and whilst they were boasting of the perfection of the system, which they 
said would always protect the Government from want, we heard the gurgling 
cry, as of a drowning man, issuing from the vaults of that same Sub-treasury, 
of " Help me Cassius, or I sink." And an application was made to Congress 
in less than thirty days for authority to issue $20,000,000 of treaxury notes ; 
and within a very short period after that another application was made and 
obtained for the loan of $20,000,000 more ; all of which, together with the 
regular annual revenues of the Government, is now expended, and, by 
authority, they are now reissuing these treasury notes as fast as thoy can be 
redeemed, and thus the Government, without any checks or balances, has 
been converted into a great, irresponsible, banking institution, with a circo- 
lating medium of $20,0i;0,000, which they are not able to redeem, and have, 
on some occasions, refused to redeem when presented for payment. 



33 



So that this administration has, in two years, not only disposed of all the 
accruing revenues, but spent the balance of the surplus remaining in the 
Treasury ; run up the public debt from 25 to $65,000,000, and, although the 
estimated receipts for the present year will fall $40,000,000 below the esti- 
mated expenditures, which will increase the debt to $105,000,000, yet the 
President asks, as I have shown, for §50,000,000 more for treaty and war- 
making purposes — the former of which, if it could be accomplished, would 
add two or thre hundred millions more to the debt ; and the latter might lead 
to a sum that no man can begin to calculate. 

I said, in my African Church speech, in 1S56 — that if it was not for the 
boldest audacity that ever controlled a reckless party, they would come for- 
ward, in a spirit of humility and shame ; acknowledge their incapacity to 
regulate and control the affairs of this great nation, and ask to be relieved of 
its responsibilities. What I said then, I take occasion to repeat here. The 
President tells us that the estimated expenditures of the present, and next 
succeeding fiscal year, will fall considerably short of the estimated receipts, 
and, of course, the deficiency is to be supplied by another, and another, and 
another loan, as circumstances may require ; and all this when we are at peace 
with all the world ; and exclusive of the $50,000,000 with which it is pro- 
posed he shall be invested to involve us in war, if he thinks fit (and to estab- 
lish a Protectorate in Mexico without her consent, which, of itself, is war to 
all intents and purposes, as I have said before), and for the negotiation of a 
treaty for the purchase of Cuba — and yet, this is the party that claims to be 
the only party in this country capable of administering, or worthy of being, 
intrusted with the administration of the Government. 

It is but an act of justice to one member of the Democratic party, upon 
whom the weight of responsibility rests too heavily to be borne, to say that 
he has recanted a portion of his false doctrines, has renounced the error ot 
his way, and paid a just tribute to the far-reaching sagacity of his political 
opponents — and that is, Mr. Buchanan, the President himself; who acknow- 
ledges the error of the Democratic party in establishing and adhering to the 
ad valorem system of duties, and now recommends the system of specific 
duties, which has always been a great bone of contention between the par- 
ties ; and the reason he assigns for the change, although modestly and 
cautiously said, nevertheless it is said, and we are thankful that he has said 
it — notwithstanding this, the party bound by that inexorable rule, will not 
yield to his suggestions, because it would be giving up a party measure, and 
that would be an acknowledgement of their fallibility, which they and the 
Koman Catholic church never admit. 

He says — " In my deliberate judgment, specific duties are the best, if not 
the only means of securing the revenue against false and fraudulent invoices, 
and such has been the practice adopted for this purpose by other commercial 
nations — besides specific duties would afford to the American manufacturer 
the incidental advantages to which he is fairly entitled wnder a revenue tariff P 

s 



34 MR. BOITS' ADDRESS. 

There it is! And that is just precisely what we have been trying to impress 
npon the popular luind, and upon the Democracy in particular, for the last 25 
years. But I am afraid it has come from the President too late to be of any 
service to the country — he has filled all his appointments ; there are no vacm- 
cies in the cabinet, and no more foreign missions to be filled, and if there were 
the term of duration is getting to be rather short. 

If he had made this recommendation when he first came into power, when 
he held four full years of patronage in the hollow of his hand, what influence 
it might have had, especially if persevered in, and pressed with the same 
earnestness and vigor that the Lecompton Constitution was, it is difficult to 
tell. Then, indeed, there would have been strong hope that the country might 
have realized some advantage from his administration. 

But it appears to me a very pertinent inquiry might here be made. If the 
President is iu earnest in his recommendation, and knows that false and 
fraudulent invoices are daily resorted to under the ad valorem system, by 
which the revenues of the Government are stolen, and if he believes the 
American manufacturers are deprived of advantages that they are entitled to 
incidentally or otherwise, why does he not make these important matters a 
test of Democratic orthodoxy as he did of the Lecompton Constitution? 
Why does he not require those occupying positions of influence and power 
by bis own appointment, to aid him ia protecting the Government from being 
swindled, and securing to that important class of his fellow-citizens all the 
rights to which they are entitled ? 

By the suftrages of the people, Mr. Buchanan is the head of the Govern- 
ment, and upon him devolves the duty of seeing the laws faithfully executed, 
and upon him also rests the responsibility for their violation, so far as it is in 
his power to jjrevent it. Why, then, when he makes one recommendation 
does his Secretary of the Treasury interpose the influence of his position to 
to thwart the views of the President, which must necessarily divide the 
party ? 

I think there is but one solution to the question. The President and Se- 
cretary are both Democratic j)oliticians ! They both belong to that great 
IMPOSITION party of the country, and they are playing a game of hob-nob 
with the people. It is Cobb! you tickle the South under the ad valorem rib; 
and Buck ! you tickle Pennsylvania and the North under the specific rib : and 
this will furnish ground of defense for the party in each section of the coun- 
try. In one section they can swear by the President, and in the other by the 
Secretary. This is one of the party tricks not unfrequently played in manu- 
facturing platforms that will read any way you may desire, to delude and 
cheat the people. If this is not the true secret, I do not see how either gen- 
tleman can be content to hold his present political relations with the other. 

Mr. t'obb is one of my most intimate friends, for whom I entertain great 
personal regard ; but I am dealing with these gentlemen as jioliticiana and 
not as friends; and I feel assured that Mr. Cobb would not willingly throw 



MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 35 



himself in the path of the President upon so important a question, if there 
were not some understanding between them. It may be a sharp game, but 
it is not a strong one, and it won't pay — for as long as the Democratic party 
is in power, it must stand responsible for its own measures ; but if it could 
divide the responsibility, then the Secretary of the Treasury and his wing 
must bear the responsibility of encouraging fr'auds upon the public revenues ; 
whilst the President must bear the responsibility of sufiering the laws to be 
violated, and these thefts to be committed, and his fellow-citizens to be cheated 
out of rights to which they are entitled, when, by the efforts and influence of 
a united Cabinet, all this wrong might be avoided. 

This is not the only compliment he pays to the American system of Mr. 
Clay. He recognizes the right of the General Government to embark in 
internal improvements too, and to appropriate money for the most gigantic 
scheme ever yet proposed in the United States, being for nothing less than a 
railroad to the Pacific. 

To be sure the old gentleman, feeling that he is traveling over new-made 
ground, treads very cautiously, as if he were walking on rotten ice, and dis- 
claims all power to make such appropriations, except under the war-making 
power. Very well ! be it so ! AVe care not where the power lies, or in what 
clause of the Constitution it is to be found; it is enough for us to know that 
it is there, whether under the war-making power, the commercial power, the 
power to protect the lives and property of our citizens, or the post road 
power, is a matter of no consequence. 

It is there, and that is enough. If the Opposition should ever obtain the 
ascendancy, I hope they will use the power with all proper discretion — but it 
does seem to me that if we have the power to build a railroad to the Pacific, 
in order to protect our now defenseless Pacific possessions, and to supply our 
people with provisions, and troops, and munitions of war, when engaged in 
actual hostilities, it cannot well be denied that we have the same power to 
remove the obstructions to the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, 
to send our troops in time of war from the Western and Middle and Northern 
States to defend the city of New Orleans or the State of Texas, in time of 
war also, and that we have the right to im^irove our rivers, and harbors, and 
lakes, which constitute the great highways of commerce, just as we now 
exercise the right of erecting iight-houses for |;he same purpose. 

Having thus shown the actual condition of the country, which is a sorrow- 
ful, but not overdraM'n picture, and the causes that have, in my best judg- 
ment, led to it, the inquiry remains to be answered, what is the remedy ? 
And the first thing to be done, as I think, is to get rid of Democracy! and 
there is but one way of doing that, and that is, t)y a union of all the elements 
of opposition to it. Neither the Republican party, the American party, nor 
the Whig party, into which the Opposition is divided, is strong enough to 
beat the Democracy by itself. Neither of the two, combined, can do it — if the 
third element is left to cast its vote for, or divide it with, the Democracy. One 
of these parties may have a great surplus of strengtliin some of the States, which 
will be of no service to them in other States, more equally divided, and which, 
if carried for Democracy will elect their candidate. 

The next step is to abate, at all events for the present, all sectional issues 
and agitation. God grant, in his mercy, that it could be done, not only now, 
but for ever ! But this inust be done to prevent a sectional issue, upon which 
all the Southern States will be united in fevor of the Democracy, when it will 
require very little aid from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Indiana, 
to give them anotlier triumph. 

Is such a coalition lilvcly to be formed ? I can see strong indications that it 
may be; but I confess, at the same time, I see much to discourage the hope, 
and to occasion a painful apprehension, that the Democracy, now in a minority 
of more than half a million, may, through our dissensions and divisions, be 
again successful. 

I know there are some impracticable people who say they are opposed to all 



36 MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 

coalition, and who would rather sink to the bottom in a political contest, and 
be kept under the heel of despotism contending for some unattainable princi- 
ple, than to be indebted for a success by which an infinite deal of good 
might be accomplished to those who cannot endorse their whole entire creed. 
That is not the case with me. If I cannot get all I want, 1 will take all lean get. 

If I were at sea, 1,0()0 miles from .shore, and I found the ship had sprung a 
leak, and was fast going down — and whilst I was laboring with all my energies 
to stop that leak any other passenger or person were to come up and offer his 
assistance, I would not stop to inquire what was his religion, what his politics, 
or what his profession ; but I would take him by the hand and say, go to work, 
my good fellow, let us stop this leak and save the ship, save our own lives, 
save the crew and cargo, and if there is to be any quarrel between us about 
the distribution of the cargo, let us postpone that until we get safely into port. 

This, it appears to me, would be the course that practical wisdom and com- 
mon sense would dictate ; and if the ship .■should be lost, because such aid was 
rejected, it would be sorry consolation to the owners, to be told that she went 
down because it was a marine, and not a aailor, that would have saved her. 

Our country now is in that sinking condition ; it is traveling, with railroad 
speed, down an inclined plane, to destruction — and the only question for us to 
decide, and we must decide it quicldy, is whether we shall supply the breaks 
or clap on more steam. I am for applying the brake, and the man who has 
the most power, for the application, is the Brakesman that I want, and am in 
search of. I will not stop to a<k what have been the politics of any man who 
will help me to do it. 

But we want a man who will do something more than beat the Democracy. 
We want no barren victory, which if possible, is worse than defeat. We want 
a wise, reflecting, judicious statesmnn. We want a miin who will discharge 
his duty freely, and fearlessly in healing all .sectional animosities; who will put 
down all Southern leagues ; who will see that the Inws are faithfully executed ; 
that mob laws and lawless violence is restrained ; that this growing spirit of 
fiUibustering, or to call it by its right name, this piratical cruising and seizing 
of other people's property, cither o:\ the high .seas, or on the friendly territory 
of our neighbors, is not only arrested, iiut punished. 

We want, a man who, as the representative of the whole nation, will act in 
that enlarged, enlightened, national and catholic spirit, that will recognize the 
just rights of all, and not exert his influence nor the influence of his office for 
any section of the country, against another section, upon any sectional or other 
ssue. 

To speak it plainly, we want a man who will turn his attention, and the 
attention of the government, to the interests of the White race, and let slavery 
take care of itself, as it surely can and sureli/ will, where it exists under the 
Constitution and the local law that protects it, and where no one must, and 
no one can, be permitted (and no party, as far as I know, is disposed) to 
interrupt it, but those who have the legal control of it. 

As for the further extension of Sh've territory, that question has been 
finally .settled by the vSouthern Democracy for th"inselves, when they repealed 
the Mi.ssouri Compromise; and they must abide the rasult of their own action, 
and there is but one possible means by which Slave territorry can ever be 
enlarged under this Government, as I told them in 1R54, and that is, by the 
farther acquisition of Slave territory, its by the attainment of Cuba, for exam- 
ple ; and that can never be done by the Slave States without the aid of Free. 

We want a man whose antecedents will secure the confidence of his coun- 
try, and who will look to the Constitution as his platform, and the only one 
upon which the Government can be safely, wisely, or properly administered, 
and the only one that contains the elements of strength within itself for en- 
forcing all its provisions. 

We want a man, who, instead of encouraging mischievous legislation, stir- 
ring up sectional strife for party and political purposes, shrinking from, 
rather than meeting the responsibilities of his position, when disunionista 
threaten the longer existence of the llepublic, and lawless, wicked men, bid 



MR. BOTTS' ADDRESS. 37 

defiance to the laws, will imitate the example of the other great powers of the 
earth, by advancing with steady and rapid strides to the development of all 
those natural and industrial resources that constitute the material progress of 
a nation, and lead to the wealth and power and greatness of the State. 

We want a man who, without being parsimonious or illiberal, will reduce 
the expenditures of the Government to a fairly economical point, and urg^ a 
policy that will keep our money at home to encourage American Industry, 
rather than send it abroad to be laid out in the work-shops of Europe. 

We want a man who will elevate the standard of virtue and morality among 
our public men at home, and raise the intellectual standard of those who 
represent us abroad. 

We want a man who will give an impetus rather to the improvement of 
what we have, than to the farther expansion of the country. 

We want a man who will not permit the energies and interests of this 
great nation any longer to yield to that eternal, everlasting and exhaustless 
question of Slavery. 

Can no such man be found either Xorth, or South, East, or West ? If he 
can, let him be brought forward, and I, for one, will " wear him in my heart 
of hearts," and bless God, in his kind Providence, for having spared the man 
that can save his country ! 

The Democratic party is now routed, it es broken, its forces scattered. 
Will the Republican party unite with forming a patrotic " Holy Alli- 

ance," on fair and honorable terms, invc . g no sacrifice of principle to any 
party — that we may meet them at Watei ^o, in 1860, and extirpate them for- 
ever; or will they pursue a selfish policy, by which alone the Democracy can 
collect and rally and conquer? A sectional issue must, inevitably, produce 
this result, whilst nothing else can. 

For myself, I say here, in advance, that let the election in 1860 take what 
turn it may, with tlie convictions as they are now fastened on my mind, as a 
patriot and an honest man, I cannot, and I will not, give my support to one 
who belongs to the present organization of the Democratic party, let the 
consequences be what they may. I may become an inactive or an armed neu- 
tral, but a supporter of Democrac}', as at present organized, I can never be. 

Having thus tar expressed my own sentiments, for which nobody else is re- 
ponsible, with a hope that they may be received by my countrymen as an 
admonition from one, who, for the last thirty years, has watched closely 
the movements of public men, and of political parties, I feel that I am not at 
liberty to take my seat without having a few words to say in relation to that 
Organization, tlirongh whose kind invitation I have had the honor of ad- 
dressing this audience. 

There are many, who, since Americanism has lost the sweeping power with 
which it rushed like a hurricane over the country a few years ago, find it con- 
venient, and perhaps politic, to denounce it in all its forms, and to express 
regret that they had ever formed a connection with it. 

Not so with me ! I am proud to acknowledge and proclaim that I am one 
of the Order of United Americans, whose principles are found, whose objects 
are patriotic, and whose ends are for the good of the whole, whether of 
native or foreign birth. 

We are no enemies to foreigners. We know that there are many good, 
and wise, and virtuous men among them, who are conservative in their 
views, patriotic in their aims, and eminently useful as citizens. If all 
-were so, tht^n no American organization would h«ve been necessary, in 
our free and hospitable land, and if our conptitution enabled ns to draw a 
line of distiBCtion, bet-ween the virtuous and the vicion?, the men of sub- 
stance and the men of straw, the m^-n of independence and the purchased 
hireling, the men of reason, and the men of passion — we would gladly 
separate the worthy from the vyorlhlese, and admit the one, and shut, out 
the other from all participation in the management of those institutions, 
•which, for the sake of our war-worn fathers, for our own sake?:, and for the 
sake of our children, and our children's children, we feel bound to hand 



38 MR. BOTTS' ADDREvSS. 



down unimpaired, as we received them from those who went before u?. 
But we have seen a policv adopted, in those old countries that are glutted 
with a population they cannot support, or employ to ad vantage — throwing 
wide open their prison houses, and th'-ir alms houses and belching forth 
upon our shores, thousands of idle, dissolute, worthless and depraved men, 
who are not only unused to, but unfit for, self-government, never caring to 
claim the bent-fits of the law of naturalization, or the rii/ht of voting, 
until unworthy appliances are resorted to, to bring them up by companies, 
and battallions, and regiments, to swear, sometimes truly, and as often 
falsely, to the time they have been among us, and then march to the polls 
in solid column, and drive, by brute force, the quiet, peaceable, native 
citizen from the exercise of his birthright and birth-bought privilege, and 
then deposit their own vote, without knowing the names of their candi- 
dates, the principles they maintained, the oflices they were to fill, and 
without caring for the consequences of their acts — led on by some designing 
and interested demagogue with money in one hand, and a whisky bottle in 
the other, and the cry of Democracy on his lips, they have followed 
wherever they were led, and have done whatever they were bid. 

For twenty odd years we have seen the balance of power, in the division 
of parties, held by this class of people, through whose instrumentality Pre- 
sidents have been elected, legislative bodies chosen, and the legislation 
of the country controlled. 

We have felt and suffered under the withering and blighting influence 
that they have thus exercised. We have felt a painful apprehension for 
the safety of those institution^, which are as essential to the welfare and 
happiness, and as dear to the hearts of tiie substantial, and virtuous for- 
eigners, as to ourselves ; and we have believed, in the honesty and sincer- 
ity of our hearts, that a due regard to patriotism, and love of country, re- 
quired at our hands some tfforf. to abate this rapidly-increasing evil, which, 
it not controllel in time will become so powerful and effective as to make 
it resistless; for whilst no one apprehends* they will ever constitute a ma- 
jority of themselves, they will never lack for those who will p'-ofess a 
sympathy, and act in concert with them for the favors they can bestow, 
and with their constant reinforcements, they are becoming a more and 
more important element with each succeeding year. 

There has been no general election in the United States for the last twen- 
ty-five years, in which the native vote was not very largely in opposition 
to the Democracy; 3'et how seldom have we succeeded, either in the State 
or national elections, until within a year or two past, when the native ele- 
ment has been aroused by the violence, folly and madness of the foreign 
population. 

In the contest of 1856, the popular majority against the Democratic 
nominee was 378,000. Now take from his }>oll the solid, unbroken column 
of 7 or 800,000 foreign votes, and see what an immense disparity it leaves 
between the native elements of the Democracy and the Opposition. Yet 
the Democracy succeeded. 

And now, I would ask, are there enough of American-born citizens, and 
foreigners now naturalized, to control our own afi'aiis? And are we capa- 
ble of doing ?o without further foreign aid ? If so, why should it besought 
and courted ? Can it be a source of self congratulation to any reflecting 
mind, that an overwhelming majority of his own countrymen, equally in 
terested in the welfare of the State with himself, questioning bis polioy- 
and trembling for their mutual safety, should be beaten down, their coun- 
sels spurned, and they, themselves, excluded from all participation in their 
common concerns, by the aid of those, who, to a large extent, neither 
knew nor cared for what they did. 

It, is not proposed to interfere, in the slightest degree, with the acquired 
rights of those already here, and we could not if we would. We arc even 
willing that those already here shall be allowed to go on and perfect tlieir 



ME. BOTTS' ADDEESS. 39 



claim, to participate with us, under the law as it now stands; but we ask 
for a prosp<^ctive day of emancipation from this growing and rapidly in- 
creasing evil, before we are all overwhelmed. 

Nor is it proposed to iiiterfere with the subject of religion, or *he religious 
worship of any portion of the people of the United States. The Order of 
United Americans is not now, and never has been, mixed up with any 
question relating to the church; and the other American organizaiions of 
the country never contemplated anything more than resistance to all at- 
tempts at an intermixture or union of Chtirch and State. They never 
disputed the right of any one to connect himself with whatever church he 
might prefer, aud to wo.ship his Maker as his conscienc might direct — but 
their purpose was to permit no church, of any denomination, to control 
the State, and no ecclesiastical order to govern the civil authority, nor 
force any particular religion upon the people, by legal enactment, for the 
exclusion of the bible from the common schools. 

The kingdom of Christ is not of this worJd ; it is not temporal, but 
spiritual ; and whilst his disciples are commanded to obey the powers that 
be, they are expressly forbidden any usurpation of the civil authority, or 
control over temporal power. 

For my own part, I should be more than willing that every foreigner, 
now upon our shores, or arriving here, within any given future day, within 
a limited period, should be allowed to go at once to the proper tribunal, 
and by declaring his intention, upon oath, to become a permanent citizen, 
take the oath of fidelity to the United States and become at once invested 
with every civil and leligious privilege enjoyed by a native citizen; but I 
would withhold from him all political power, and let him wait patiently 
until his children, raised under republican institutions, nursed, as it were, 
by the milk of liberty from its mother's breast, should stand forth and 
claim, as we do now, that he has rights and privileges at home that do not 
belong to every traveling vagrant, that, from charity, he might choose to 
take into his household to protect from want and cold. 

Under this regulation, they would become entitled to other privileges 
far more important to them than the right of voting — among them, the right 
of holding lands and transmitting them to their posterity, which in many of 
the States, my own among them, they cannot now do. 

Another advantage they would derive would be, that they would be en- 
titled to the protection of the flag of the United States, which I would 
require them also to protect, by performing militia duty. 

It constitutes no necessary part of the qualification of a citizen, that he 
should be entitled either to vote or hold a political office. 

A man in my own State, who has sent or accepted a challenge to fight a 
duel, is disqualified from holding any office, legislative, executive, or judi- 
cial, of honor, profit or emolument — yet he is none the less a citizen for all that 

If I were to come to New York, with the intention of becoming a rcbi- 
dent, and were to change my mind and return to Virginia within a year, a 
mouth or a week, I would be disqtialified from voting for two years. I 
should be none the less a citizen, however; aud this proposed extension ot" 
one important privilege for another that is of little value to them, and little 
cared for by a large portion of them, will serve to show ihat it is from no 
unfriendly spirit to them, but a firm belief that the safety of the country 
requires the sacrifice, if sacrifice it can be called, on their own account as 
well as ours. 

Events are now in progress for the emancipation of the serfs of Russia, 
of whom there are no less than 35,000,000, and a very large portion of 
them proverbially the most beastly and degraded liars, drunkards, and 
rogues alive, who are incapable of making good laborers, good soldiery 
or good citizens, or of being otherwise useful to the State. We may well 
suppose that the day will arrive, and at no very remote period, when it 
will become desirable to the government of Russia to be reheved of th« 



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40 MR. BOTI '-/.^ „...„,,.. Ml 1 I 111 111 III! 



enormous tax of supporting; and c ll 111 111 I 1||| 111 I [111 I II ^^ ^^ 
people, that ciin be productive |ll|l|||i||il!|i||lii|| lllil'lllilill™''^^^ and 

expense. To say that every fifth o 011 898 320 8 very 

moderate computation. 

Here, then, are from seven to ten millions of these miserable beings that 
the Emperor Alexander may desire to get rid of, and send off from his 
dominions. Where are they to go? where can room be found for them? 
•where will they meet with a welcome home ? where else but in the United 
States? where the Democracy will meet them on the shores with open 
arm«, initiate them into the profound mysteries of their order, march them 
up in due time, in regimental order and numbers, to the courts, pay the 
expenses of their naturalization, lead them off to the polls, and claim, as 
the reward for their friendship, attention and civilities, an unconditional 
support of all Democratic nominees to office. 

And, now, I ask the honest, patriotic masses of the Democracy, North 
and South, if they are prepared to admit as many of these people as may 
be sent amongst us to a full participation and enjoyment of all the privi- 
leges and rights bestowed upon us by our Coustitution and laws as well as 
by our inheritance ? And 1 ask them, furthermore, if they believe those 
rights and privileges and the unspeakable blessing of free government would 
be enjoyed long by them or ourselves, when this state of things shall exist. 

I ask the naturalized citizen of respectability and substance if he sees 
no mischief here to be guarded against? I ask the unnaturalized for- 
eigner who has children to raise and property to protect, if he would not 
feel that their interests and his own were better secured, and that free 
government stood on a firmer foundation by the exclusion of this mass 
of rottenness from the body politic than by its adnjittance into it? And 
then I a^k of each one the question, whether he would not sooner yield his 
own claim to exercise political power than that it should be extended to 
all these, in order to take him in? For, as I said before, the Constitution 
allows of no distinction — we must take in all, or exclude all. And, finally, 
I ask. can we be condemned by any now amongst us for a dfsire to take 
timely steps for their protection and our own from such wholesale calamity 
as may reault, if the present policy on the subject uf naturalization shall be 
persevered in. 

I do not hazard much by expressing the opinion, that the day is not re- 
mote when the principles of this American organization will command the 
respect and confidence of the entire nation, and, at all events, if is not es- 
teemed as a virtue, it will not be condemned, even by the Democracy, as a 
vice — that we watched our liberties with a jealous eye, and professed more 
confidence in the councils and patriotism, acd preferred the services and 
control of our own people, bad as they have been, and bad as they may be, 
hereafter, over that of any other people, no matter of what caste, religion 
or language, upon the face of the ear'h. 

And now in conclusion, let me propose, that here, on this occasion, on 
the birth day of Washington, in his name, and in the presence of his 
spirit, we renew our protestations of undying devotion to that great work 
of his hands, tue union of the status, and pledge ourselves to each other 
and to mankind, that, "come what, come may," we will discountenance 
and repudiate all men, and all parties that encourage, or sympathize with, 
or tolerate any scheme for the destruction of our liberties, by a dissolution 
of our great and Heavenly descended Union, and that we will hold all men 
as traitors and enemies to the best gift a favored people ever received at 
the hands of Deity, who have, by word or deed, under any condiiion of 
ihingH that has yet existed, or that is likely to exist, entertained the fiend- 
ish purpose of breakiuti up this tirear, confederacy of States, or have, 

"Like fools, riislu'J in wIkti- arifjols miglit fear to tread," 
aud impiously ventured upon a calculation ot its value; whilst with "our 
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," we swear to protect the stars 
And stripes through life, or make it our winding sheete in death. 



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